What is the BEST external tv tuner ?

[casey288]

OK, so I get the award for the most vauge, open-ended general question. But ya know, every several months or so the answer changes. (Maybe not that fast with tv cards)

I Have a brand newe laptop. hi-proforming specs but it is XP-Home. I want the best external tuner.

Im so confused shopping for them. for instance:

1) If a tuner gets up to 125 channels does that mean I wont be able to record any chanel over 125?

2) If I buy beyond tv does it matter what usb tuner i get? Ebay has dozens of US region usb boxes that are cheap, should I get one of those opting for the punch to come from the software?

3) Is the tuner going to be changing the chanel or am I going to have a wire with an IR blaster to change my cable box? (Comcast moto DCT-6412)

thanks in advance for any help. I am very open and impressionable to your advice

tom

[Brett]

Since you are using a Comcast box... you will not be using the "tuner" on the device. Therefore, the fact that it only receives up to channel 125 is irrelevant.

You want to make sure its a supported device and definitely a hardware encoder. I am not even sure if they still make software encoder ones, but avoid them like the plague. I recommend the Hauppuage WinTV-PVR-Usb2.0.

Also you will need an IR blaster or if the box qualifies a serial cable (which I don't think will work on that box).

Welcome to the Forums!
-Brett

[ClamsTheCat]

I agree with Brett. Pony up and make sure you get an external tuner that does hardware encoding. If you don't you will be dissapointed, and you will end up buying the Hauppauge in the end anyhow.

When tuning a cable box you will need a USB-UIRT or some other IR device to tell it when to change channels. The capture device ends up working as just a capture card and not a tuner. The internal tuner is not in use when you are using an external cable box.

Don't be discouraged; the whole external tuner, IR Blaster set up process is kind of complicated to visualize, but once you have it set up, it works like a charm.

[rakeshagrawal]

The Hauppauge PVR-USB2 is what we generally recommend (as you'll find if you go through our new Beyond TV wizard: http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/buywiz.asp). Unfortunately, it doesn't have an IR blaster on it like the PVR-150 does, but maybe this is something Hauppauge will eventually address.

Anyways, one disadvantage to the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, in my opinion, is the fact that it's not bus-powered. So it has its own power supply and that means one more thing to plug-in. The Diamond XTremeTV PVR-600 is bus-powered and otherwise has a more compact design (and it has an MPEG-2 hardware encoder). So that's another option you can consider.

[WillP]

Stay away from the Plextor tuners. I recently bought the ConvertX TV-402U external tuner (from the SS store). I purchased it because I wanted an external tuner, and I liked the fact that this one can encode in divx as well as mpeg2.

The mpeg2 quality is quite noticeably worse than my Hauppauge PVR-250's. Divx quality is poor and has a slight audio / video sync issue, which keeps me from utilizing this feature at all. At first I thought it might be a bad unit so I returned it. I have the same problem with the second one.

I haven't used hauppauge's external tuners, but I can certainly vouch for the quality of their pci cards. I wish I bought a PVR-USB2 myself.

[Eric3a]

I quite like my Plextor tuner in DivX mode... You have to configure using the Go Plextor utility.
I must be one of the few who's not as impressed with the PVR250's image quality. Both with my ATI and my nVidia cards I find the red and blues just a little wrong and the other colors are just a little washed out. Nothing major, but it just bugs me and I miss my ATI AIW color reproduction.
Eric

[WillP]

I can't use Plextor's software. If you buy the tuner from the Snapstream store, it doesn't come with software. And the utilities on Plextor's website will not install if you don't have the software from the disc installed. So I guess the lesson is if you buy the Plextor tuner, buy it retail.

I agree with your criticism of the PVR-250. But it looks tremendously better than the Plextor tuner on my system.

[Eric3a]

I still think it's a video quality problem. You can download Go Cap from Plextor's site but the best way is probably from within BTV anyway.
Another way around it, a little longer:

Web Admin.
Video Qualities. See which one is set as "Default" for recording. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a low quality one.
If that's the case:
Open the highest quality setting and note the settings.
Make a copy of the current Default quality (rename and save as new)
Go back in it the Defulat quality and change its settings to match the hihest quality, those you wrote down. Save it as new.
Now your Video Qualities should indicate that the new High quality you just created is the default.

Eric

[WillP]

My default recording quality is a custom 5 megabit / sec mpeg2 profile. Looks great on my PVR-250's. With the plextor, it looks terrible. Maybe like it's dropping frames or something. I have it hooked up to a usb 2.0 port on the computer so usb bandwidth shouldnt be a problem. I tried to use the Plextor utility to test and configure it, but it will not install without the software from the CD which I do not have.

[Eric3a]

You're sure the default Plextor quality isn't a DivX one? I don't think your default MPEG quality is being used by the Plextor.

With the 2 tuners installed you should be able to select MPEG or Divx in the "Recording Preference" web admin screen. The Web admin is a little quirky and unless you're aware that you won't think of selecting DiVx in the recodring preference menu.

I just deinstalled my Plextor tuner so I am doing this from memory. But I am almost certain that at present your Plextor is simply using it's default BTV quality which is some horribly low quality. I happened to me when I first installed the Plextor tuner.

Did you do my trick above?
What quality is currently listed uner DivX default for recording? If it is low aul then that's your problem.
Eric

[WillP]

According to the BTV log, the Plextor is indeed recording in mpeg2 as it should. I have the Plextor recording format set to auto in the web admin (A/V inputs section). The global default recording format is set to mpeg2 5 mbit/sec in the web admin (recording prefs page). So the plextor should record in mpeg2 by default, which it is according to the log.

Also according to the log when the Plextor starts to record, it adjusts the bitrate from 5mbits/sec to 6 mbits/sec to "conform to device specifications". So it's actually recording in a higher quality than I have it set.