Nvidia DualTV Discontinued by FCC! Possibly Hauppauge 150s & 500s??

[plauber]

http://forums.snapstream.com/public_...cons/icon4.gif Nvidia DualTV Discontinued by FCC! Possibly Hauppauge 150s & 500s??
Reposting to correct Forum....

I was getting ready to purchase the NVIDIA DualTV tuner to my analog cable BTV setup when I saw this on the Nvidai web site. Not sure what direction to go now?

"The NVIDIA® DualTV MCE TV tuner card has been discontinued. NVIDIA has announced it is discontinuing sales of NVIDIA DualTV MCE, an analog TV tuner, in accordance with the FCC requirement that TV receiving devices sold after March 1, 2007 possess the capability of supporting digital television signals." http://www.nvidia.com/page/dualtvmce.html

Does this mean all the Hauppauge 150s & 500s are also going to be discontinued under the same rules ???

Where does that leave us?

[merrypig]

Ick. Hopefully it means SS will quickly move to implement proper cc support before we're no longer able to buy cards from hauppauge with it working.

[jkirk]

actually i think they need to get off their tails and implement some form of qam support.

[ZetaVu]

Sounds like it will be all hybrid cards like the HVR 1600. There aren't that many hd cards that hardware encode sd, so either you build up your machine to software encode or hunt around for the hybrids. Also, this requirement should only apply to US cards, you should be able to buy cards internationally (aka, Canada) that would still work.

FCC can really be a pain in the ass, didn't they try this with the broadcast flag and the supreme court told them they lacked authority? Difference here is no one is suing them.

[ZetaVu]

Just a reference I found - http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9685948-1.html - Quote "The March 1 deadline applies to manufacturers, not retailers. Whatever's on the shelf at Circuit City or Best Buy on February 28 will still be there the following day" so you should still be able to buy the old cards, even from snapstream. Other options, they can disable the analog tuner and just sell the cards as capture devices from cable boxes (this could be done with new drivers) so theoretically they could continue to manufacture them, although I doubt they will. I assume they will make HVR1600's, then maybe a replacement for the pvr500 lacking the analog tuner other than a couple channels (3 and 4) strictly for cable/satellite.

Now here's a gray area, you could still use an analog tuner with a cable box to get all non-digital non-encrypted channels, which then becomes unfair since someone who just want analog cable gets screwed. Hopefully, they can workaround just by updating the drivers to disable the antenna inputs and could still sell pvr500's (then of course all the end user needs to do is use an older driver, which is completely legal)

Our government is really, really stupid.

By the way, March is boycott the RIAA month, nothing to do with this topic but what the hell, when discussing stupidity they came to mind.

[Voxelflinger]

It means maunfacturers are gearing up to make new cards for HD/Digital and gives retailers time to sell off outdated stock.

The FCC did this back in the CB radio days when they did away with the 19 channel radios and increased the number of channels for citizen band.

They also had something similar when FM radio came out. Back then you had to make and AM/FM radio. You could not get an FM only radio. This was due to the partly to the fact that FM was not popular enough and was mainly talk radio.

You have until 2009 for analog to phase out. Even afterwards your vcr and set top dvd players are still analog as are most camcorders.

It's possible to use an IR blaster with a digital box as a lot of people will not run out and replace that good deal tube type set they bought from Wal Mart on Dec. 31st, 2008.

Given the changes in software (VISTA), in processors (286 - dual core), in memory (DDR/DDR2) and in video cards (VGA/PCI/AGP/PCI-X) and in others things, your tuner card should not be a big surprise!

Other than selling off my RCA Videodisc player and 8-tracks I have most of my old technology including my reel to reel. It still works and I didn't panic. You have a window in which you can still enjoy analog tv.

I came in to BTV knowing I had a few years to enjoy my analog setup. when the time comes to change and it will I hope to have a QAM type setup in a much newer PC. As much as I would like to I am not investing in anymore analog tuners even tho my cable is analog. I will be saving for new devices.

Take this time to plan your future upgrades.

[wayne1935]

It is my understanding that the cable providers will continue to provide analog service for those of us - and apparently there are too many to ignore - that still subscribe to basic service coming directly from the wall and not through any kind of box.

I think the FCC mandate covers only OTA service.

Wayne

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by wayne1935

I think the FCC mandate covers only OTA service.

Yes, it seems like all they had to do was say it was for cable analog reception and they could have still sold it...

[myktek]

looks like Nvidia won't be making any other TV tuners and this is why Hauppauge made the HVR 1600.... =(

[wayne1935]

I just saw that KWorld has a new tuner - the 115. The web site indicates that it has QAM capability. I think I read that the 110 had QAM on the chip but it wasn't turned on.

To use QAM you'll have to use their bundled software. I sure hope BTV gets on the QAM bandwagon soon. I just want to be able to get local network TV in HD. I don't care about the other - what ever number - channels that might be available in HD.

Wayne

[Darkk]

Is it hard to have SS offer third party support for QAM as a plug-in?

BTW I love my Hauppuage 1600 which works well with my PVR-350.

Darkk

[ZetaVu]

I like my 1600 as well, only problem is the line in audio is too high for me stb, audio clips. I'm trying to get Hauppauge to feed me some registry tweaks (I'm a patient guy )

[dgw80]

I haven't ordered one myself, but according to the reviews on the newegg site, if you order a PVR-150, you get a box that says PVR-150 on the outside, but has an HVR-1600 on the inside. So maybe Hauppauge is shutting down at least some of its analog-only line as well.

Dennis

[myktek]

Originally Posted by dgw80

I haven't ordered one myself, but according to the reviews on the newegg site, if you order a PVR-150, you get a box that says PVR-150 on the outside, but has an HVR-1600 on the inside. So maybe Hauppauge is shutting down at least some of its analog-only line as well.

Dennis

Link to review?????

[ZetaVu]

http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/arch...r150_card.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815116625

I've seen it other places as well.