HD Tuner recommendations

[steam23]

I think I just toasted my Dvico Fusion HDTV 5 Card

My computer suddenly won't recogize it and I can't seem to reinstall. I've pulled the card and I might give it a try later on, but I fear the worst!

I'm taking a look at the new cards that are on the market, and I'm looking for recommendations. Particuarly, I'm interested in how those USB tuners perform. If my card is in fact dead, it's probably from the heat, so USB might be the way to go.

Love to hear some opinions!

[NickHark]

I like my Hauppauge HVR 1950. Its USB and NTSC, ATSC and Clear QAM.

I don't know how you can beat it for a USB tuner.

[steam23]

Thanks for the tip! I'm hoping to have a few to compare, so people, please post any other ideas

I notice you have a couple hd cards on your signature. Do you record multiple HD programs at once? How does that go on your system? Good performance?

[sgtsloth]

I think the problem with usb tuners is that many lack mpeg encoding. This offloads extra work from your CPU. Also, it's hard to find an external tuner that can record multiple shows. I run an Hauppauge HVR-2250 that works wonderfully.

[steam23]

Interesting point sgtsloth. I see from the specs on the hvr1950 (WinTV-HVR-1950 Product overview) that it has MPEG encoding on it, but it only says it for the analogue TV input.

NickHark, does it do hardware encoding on the HD input too, or just the analogue?

[Bigbird999]

OTA HD (or digital SD) is already encoded. It is broadcast as an mpeg2 transport stream. No encoding is required. The broadcast HD stream is tuned by the ATSC/QAM digital tuner and written to the HD as it is .

BB

[tmar89]

Love my 2250 to bits

[steam23]

All you 2250 lovers out there, does it run hot?? My system is a MicroAtx box. I can see from the specs that the card is half hieght, so it should fit in there ok. But I'm worried about heat. Like I said, I'm pretty sure that my old card was fried, so I don't want to add a bunch more heat to the system. My airflow is pretty good, but nothing's perfect.

[tmar89]

mine seems to be good

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by steam23

Thanks for the tip! I'm hoping to have a few to compare, so people, please post any other ideas

I notice you have a couple hd cards on your signature. Do you record multiple HD programs at once? How does that go on your system? Good performance?

I can record two atsc programs at once and watch a third on a link box. I could do this before I upgraded last month. Before I had a P4 2.4 server. My links are the same. (Of course, it can do it after the upgrade, too.)

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by sgtsloth

I think the problem with usb tuners is that many lack mpeg encoding. This offloads extra work from your CPU. Also, it's hard to find an external tuner that can record multiple shows. I run an Hauppauge HVR-2250 that works wonderfully.

May be true with some, but with the 1950, it has a hardware encoder.

Correct that it has only one tuner that does either ATSC, NTSC and Clear QAM.

My 2250 (internal, multi-tuner) is going to be delivered tomorrow.

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by steam23

NickHark, does it do hardware encoding on the HD input too, or just the analogue?

Here are the specs from Hauppauge:

Single tuner with the following broadcast formats supported:
NTSC analog TV, with built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoder
ATSC over-the-air digital TV, at video resolutions to 1080i
Clear QAM digital cable TV, at video resolutions to 1080i
FM radio
The confusion is because ATSC and Qam don't need a hardware encoder because all the tuner does is copy the stream to the disk.

[steam23]

Originally Posted by NickHark

I can record two atsc programs at once and watch a third on a link box. I could do this before I upgraded last month. Before I had a P4 2.4 server. My links are the same. (Of course, it can do it after the upgrade, too.)

That's great to know. My specs are pretty similar to yours, so I should be able to pull it off then

Miraculously, my fusion card has resurected itself. so for the time being i'm back in business Who knows for how long it'll last for. The idea of being able to record more than one hd program at the same time is pretty attractive though. I may upgrade anyway.

Thanks everyone for weighing in!

[captain_video]

Most any HDTV tuner that's supported by BTV should work fine. Note that some tuners are much more sensitive than others and may not flag all channels you receive when performing a scan during setup. You can still check the ones you know you should be able to receive, even though you'll probably get an error message indicating that some channels are weak.

Here's a list of the various tuners I've used in my HTPC:

V-Box 3560-A-USB
On-Air GT HDTV USB tuner
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-950
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-2250
SiliconDust HDHomeRun

All of the above tuners worked satisfactorily with BTV4. I believe only the V-Box and On-Air GT USB tuners were able to detect all of my local OTA HD channels when scanning them. The V-Box is a great little USB tuner if you can still find one. It's the most sensitive tuner I've ever tried. You'll just have to determine whether you need it for OTA, QAM, or both.

One caveat about USB tuners - you will need to connect them to an external powered hub if you are using more than one (I had six). Make sure the hub is a good one and that the cable is of good quality. I had a recurring problem with my hub dropping offline, resulting in the loss of all six tuners and any recordings I had scheduled while they were disconnected. You will get an error message when BTV attempts to record from a missing tuner, but only after the show has been aired for several minutes.

Initially I thought I had to go through setup all over again from scratch for all six tuners until I realized that all I had to do was shut down the PC, disconnect all of the tuners, power back up, and add them back in one at a time to let Windows find them again. Since they had already been configured with BTV4, it was like they were never missing.

Here's the best site I've found for HDTV tuner comparisons:

HDTV PC Tuner Guide

I'm currently using two 2250's and an HDHomeRun and they've all been working fine.