Advice on Tuners

[tofin]

I am still kinda new to this and am needing some advice on upgrading my tuner card....Right now I am using the PVR150 ( not mce ) and now I am finding that I need an additional tuner card...am thinking about getting the PVR500 but I only have one cable jack...I know that I can split that jack into two but what I would like to know is, should I get a signal booster and if so, any recommendations...

Thanks all

[Khris]

My cable signal is split 4 times (3 to my computer and 1 to my cable modem) without any kind of amplifier.

Granted, it will all depend on your signal strength and how many times you split the signal, but the best idea is simply to try first and see if you need an amp.

[erik]

A good splitter will cause 3db signal loss per tuner which should be VERY hard to see.
The PVR500 is assumed to have an internal splitter that does exactly the same.

[pvrguy]

My main cable is split in 4 and the run to my office and BTV server is then split in 4 again with no booster or noticable picture quality issues. Also may depend on the length of the cable runs.

[tofin]

Thanks all for your help...I did order the pvr500 which is supposed to come today...now I wish, before ordering, I had read the post about the pvr500 and changing the tuners from "philips" to "samsung". Seems like lots of problems with these cards...

[tofin]

I recieved my pvr500mce and just need a little more advice on installation...I have the pvr150 installed now and will need to remove it due to lack of pci slots...am wondering the order of installation...should I...

1)uninstall pvr150 drivers (run hwclear)
2)remove pvr150 and install pvr500mce
3)install drivers for pvr500mce ( as a side note I am installing on win xp pro, not windows mce, which drivers should I use? )
4)run btv setup

am I missing anything here?

thanks

[stevehiner]

I just upgraded my system from a PVR-150 MCE and PVR-150 to a PVR-500 (seems crazy I know but one of the 150s gives me trouble and the other got moved into my home theater pc).

I didn't mess with drivers at all. I shut down the system, yanked both 150s, put in the 500 and rebooted. Ran the BeyondTV wizard, deleted the old sources, added the new sources and it's been recording shows for a week now with no problems. YMMV

[stevehiner]

Originally Posted by tofin

I had read the post about the pvr500 and changing the tuners from "philips" to "samsung". Seems like lots of problems with these cards...

What post are you talking about. I did a search for pvr-500 and samsung and I got no hits. Then again, the search features on this site suck.

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by stevehiner;

What post are you talking about. I did a search for pvr-500 and samsung and I got no hits. Then again, the search features on this site suck.

I think he is talking about this post.

You can find it by searching for "PVR500" or just clicking the link above.

Brent

[tofin]

Originally Posted by cfaslave

I think he is talking about this post.

You can find it by searching for "PVR500" or just clicking the link above.

Brent

That is the post I am talking about....thanks cfaslave...it would be interesting to see, after reading that post, how many people who have the "type b" card are having no problems at all....we should have a poll on this and see how far the extent of the samsung tuners really go...

and thanks stevehiner...it should make my installation go easier....(hopefully )

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by stevehiner

What post are you talking about. I did a search for pvr-500 and samsung and I got no hits. Then again, the search features on this site suck.

Not sure what happend on your search, but I pasted pvr-500 and samsung from your post and got that post (and others)

[stevehiner]

Thanks guys, I don't know why my search failed either.

Turns out I have the B type tuner. I had my parents buy one too, I haven't seen it but I'm sure it's a B type as well. I'll have to check for the quality problems, soon after I installed the card I tore apart my home theater PC to fix some stuff and I'm just ready to install it again tonight. I sure hope I don't find a week's worth of unwatchable shows.

[richt]

Just last week I installed an nVidia DualTV MCE and have to say I like the picture better than the PvR 150 it replaced. While the nVidia card still has some compatibility problems, it is a good quality device.
It has one coax input that is amplified and split between the 2 tuners. It also has 2 seperate s-video inputs, so that you can use one coax for the 2 tuners, 2 STBs via s-video inputs, or one STB via s-video and one tuner via coax input.