Adding ATSC Tuner to Existing BTV Setup

[BrianEWilliams]

I have a DVR with BTV 4.6 and a Hauppauge analog card. I just bought an Envision 32 LCD HDTV, and now I need to get a different tuner card to receive the clear QAM channels my cable company so generously provides for no extra cost. Some are HD, and some aren't.

Two questions. What is a quality tuner card for this purpose? I'd prefer a card that does most of the processing via hardware because my system is not the fastest. And then, how will BTV know about the new digital channels on my cable lineup?

Thanks.

EDIT:

Found this article, which is very helpful:

http://blogs.snapstream.com/2007/05/...eam-beyond-tv/

Having the channels available to any PC on my network is a really nice feature if it works properly.

[Empyrean5]

You'll need to upgrade to 4.6.1.

I believe there are several QAM tuners available now; many of us have gone with the HDHomerun (which is, however, a digital-only box).

One thing I like about the HDHomerun is that it's network-based. For some, this means being able to place it closer to where the CATV enters the house, but for me, it'll provide an easy migration from when I eventually need to upgrade my PCI-slot server to a PCI-Express one.

Since your system "is not the fastest" you might appreciate this aspect as well.

"how will BTV know about the new digital channels on my cable lineup?" Well, that's a loaded question, with loaded answers. It will work (eventually), but it's a royal pain to get set up. Search these forums for the many threads on the topic.

Good luck!

[BrianEWilliams]

Thanks. With the HDHomerun, I hear there is a fair amount of lag at times, in addition to a difficult setup/mapping process.

In general, once it is setup, how is the user experience? My intuition is, based on the complicated setup instructions, this technology is still a little rough.

[Empyrean5]

Originally Posted by BrianEWilliams

Thanks. With the HDHomerun, I hear there is a fair amount of lag at imes, in addition to a difficult setup/mapping process.

In general, once it is setup, how is the user experience? My intuition is, based on the complicated setup instructions, this technology is still a little rough.

Yes, it's a difficult setup/mapping process .. not the fault of HDHR, but rather because BTV's support for QAM is somewhat of a "hack" to give us the capability. We're all living with the "hack" because it gives us something to work with while Snapstream engineers a better solution for a future version of BTV. (And, Snapstream gives us this new capability as an "update" rather than a dollar-driven "upgrade" -- thx SS!)

Once it's setup, I can't say anything particularly negative about it. I rarely watch Live TV, so the channel lag isn't something that bothers me, but if you watch lots of LiveTV that's probably a different case.

For the life of me, I can't understand why it takes so long for BTV to setup LiveTV with HDHR (I mean, how long does it take to set up a disk buffer, anyway? ) I wonder if this is also true with the other QAM tuners out there?

[SnakeDoctor]

I set up an HDHR this past weekend. The set-up wasn't too difficult. Just follow the instructions (which could have been written better). It is definately a hack and I'm looking forward to a more integrated solution from SS. The channel lag seems to be longest the first time you tune to a channel after starting live TV (usually around 15 to 30 seconds once the recommended configuration change has been made). After that, the channel change time is around 10 to 15 seconds on my system. Pretty lame, but it works.

[BrianEWilliams]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll wait until the technology works better.