Considering move to digital OTA

[opilion]

My brother came over yesterday an brought his CM4221HD, since I was curious about digital OTA reception from my home. I was quite pleased with the results, as I was able to receive all of the main US and Canadian networks with excellent clarity on his US purchased Insignia converter.

My current setup involves a PVR250 and a StarChoice satelite receiver tuned with an IR-200L transmitter. The processor is an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 and the video card is a GeForce 7300. I have 250GB and 500GB hard drives.

I am looking for advice on what will need to be upgraded and how the configuration will change to facilitate the move. Given my current setup, perhaps the cheapest option would be to swap the StarChoice box for a digital converter and tune it serially. (I do not have an HD TV - only SD) Otherwise I could swap the PVR-250 for an HD tuner card.

In either case, how are the channel lineups handled? Is there a scan function that will identify available channels and match them up with known networks?

If I swap the tuner for an HD one, will the size of the recordings be excessive?
Will the file size adversely affect playback - both locally and remotely via BTVLink and Placeshifting?
Can an HD tuner hardware encode to standard-def MPEG-2 resolutions?
Are there any HD tuners that record direct to MP4?
Will the video card be sufficient for playback of HD recordings at SD resolution?

Any other considerations?

I am new to digital OTA, but have been a long time BTV user - always rock-solid under the current setup. I ultimately want this to be just as simple and reliable - just without the monthly StarChoice bill.

op

[Mistergq]

I think the question you need to ask yourself is realistically, when are you planning to get an HD TV? I went kicking and screaming into an HD TV, but once I did the switch, I had to quickly begin the process of switching my PVR to HD.

I am using two HD Homeruns and I am extremely happy. I am in the process of moving from OTA to QAM through FIOS because I can get both DC and Baltimore Market where with my antenna in the attic, I can only get either Baltimore or DC, but not both. I may eventually move the antenna to the roof so I have no obstruction to get both, but I have not decided yet.

Anyways, I would recommend moving towards the HD. I record on best which the recording for 1 hour is less than 6 GB per hour from HD HR. When I was taping best with my 250 and 150, I recall the file size being 3 GB+. So you are basically doubling, but with how cheap hard drives are now, its not huge problem.

Also, the quality is so much better with HD than SD. You will need to get an HD TV, but those are coming down in price.

What I also like about HD HR is that it uses hooks up to your computer via ethernet. Now you are going to probably have to get a gigabyte network card (if you don't have one) for your server and a gigabyte switch, but its worth it.

Good luck with the process.

[opilion]

Originally Posted by Mistergq

I think the question you need to ask yourself is realistically, when are you planning to get an HD TV?

I understand the benefits of HDTV, but my motivation is purely the idea of FREE high quality digital television channels. All of the channels looked great through the digital/analog tuner/converter on my SD TV. I just need to know how to record them and what the impact would be on my setup.

[lsilvest]

If you're only concerned with OTA, all you need is a basic ATSC tuner. I use an ATI HDTV Wonder and Avermedia 180 MCE and both work perfectly with OTA. You'll see a lot of Hauppage cards listed on here also and NewEgg has a good selection an occasional sales (I got the AverMedia there for $39.00).

BTV only records Mpeg-2 transport streams for OTA. Your file size will vary (per hour) from 8G to around 4.5G for HD and as low as 1.5G for SD. It all depends on the feed and how many subs are in each stream. BTV does do showsqueezing as you know and will reduce these files to a little over 1G for high quality that will look fine on your TV. In fact, I've played some squeezed files that don't look bad on my 42" plasma. Your system specs are borderline for good HD, but if you squeeze everything you shouldn't have a problem.

[opilion]

I picked up a Hauppauge HVR-1250. I'm hoping for now that it will co-exist happily with my PVR-250 while I experiment. I still need to pick up an antenna.

[opilion]

I installed the HVR-1250 tonight with a quick homemade coat hanger antenna a la YouTube. Now the questions begin...

1. I used Autoscan in the configuration wizard to build a new lineup and found 13 channels at 95-100% strength (some from 50+ miles away). How do I get guide data for these channels? The station identifier is listed - why doesn't BTV do the math and figure out what listings to go grab? I hope there is at least a way to configure this manually. Otherwise this is a showstopper on day 1.

2. Some stations come up in 4:3 but display within a smaller box in the middle of the screen. I can manually select pillarbox to make it fill the screen, but it seems that BTV should have the smarts to recognize the format and stretch it to fill the screen automatically.

3. Having both a PVR250 and an HVR1250, the Hauppauge IR Remote no longer responds. How does one tell the IR32 app which of multiple Hauppauge tuners to listen for?

That's where I'm at so far... Please respond if you can provide any guidance.

op

[enigma9o7]

Originally Posted by opilion

2. Some stations come up in 4:3 but display within a smaller box in the middle of the screen. I can manually select pillarbox to make it fill the screen, but it seems that BTV should have the smarts to recognize the format and stretch it to fill the screen automatically.

You'd think so. (Well not stretch, but zoom, assuming you have a 16:9 tv). But it doesn't, never has, been like that since the first HD version 3.8.... AUTO doesn't mean auto, gotta switch between auto and zoom yourself. It's mainly an issue for reruns and stuff, not new shows, so over the years its been getting better and better.

[opilion]

Originally Posted by enigma9o7

You'd think so. (Well not stretch, but zoom, assuming you have a 16:9 tv). But it doesn't, never has, been like that since the first HD version 3.8.... AUTO doesn't mean auto, gotta switch between auto and zoom yourself. It's mainly an issue for reruns and stuff, not new shows, so over the years its been getting better and better.

The problem is even worse if you have a 4:3 SD TV. In this case, you alreasy have black bars top & bottom, then the video has black bars on the left and right as well. It results in a 4:3 image about 60% of full size centered in the screen. The best setting to watch this type of video seems to be pillar boxed, but it is a royal pain having to switch it every time - then switch back. I would love it if the Auto setting had some smarts to it.

[opilion]

Originally Posted by opilion

I installed the HVR-1250 tonight with a quick homemade coat hanger antenna a la YouTube. Now the questions begin...

1. I used Autoscan in the configuration wizard to build a new lineup and found 13 channels at 95-100% strength (some from 50+ miles away). How do I get guide data for these channels? The station identifier is listed - why doesn't BTV do the math and figure out what listings to go grab? I hope there is at least a way to configure this manually. Otherwise this is a showstopper on day 1.

2. Some stations come up in 4:3 but display within a smaller box in the middle of the screen. I can manually select pillarbox to make it fill the screen, but it seems that BTV should have the smarts to recognize the format and stretch it to fill the screen automatically.

3. Having both a PVR250 and an HVR1250, the Hauppauge IR Remote no longer responds. How does one tell the IR32 app which of multiple Hauppauge tuners to listen for?

That's where I'm at so far... Please respond if you can provide any guidance.

op

I have sorted out most of these issues.

1. Rather than my Canadian postal code, I selected the nearest US zipcode. I now get listings for nearby US and Canadian channels.

2. This is just plain annoying - submitted a change request.

3. After playing around for some time, I could not get the PVR250 IR receiver to cooperate, but did eventually get the HVR1250 receiver to work.

op

[Mistergq]

Originally Posted by opilion

... quick homemade coat hanger antenna a la YouTube. ...

which youtube video did you use? I have an antenna I purchased last year in the attic, but this intrigues me.

[opilion]

I used this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

The results were good with 13 channels, but not on par with the CM4221.

I am considering building an SBGH or GH10 antenna as described here: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=186
These guys have applied modern engineering and computer based modeling to a 1950s design to outperform the Channel Masters.

op

[TheSmJ]

I also made the antenna from that video about a year ago and it works perfectly - all the channels I am supposed to be able to get come in at over 29 dB (over double the recommended strength needed for flawless DTV signal). I lucked out an already had all the parts I needed on hand - goes to show being a pack rat can have its upsides.

If you are in an area where its especially difficult to get a signal, you can easily add a reflector to the antenna using a piece of cardboard and aluminum foil. Just get a flat sheet of cardboard at least a few inches larger and wider than the antenna is, cover one side of the cardboard with aluminum foil (just tape it on), and attach the aluminum foil/cardboard reflector to the opposite side of the 2x4 you made the antenna on, being sure the reflector is both wider and longer than the antenna on all sides.

[rakeshagrawal]

Originally Posted by opilion

1. I used Autoscan in the configuration wizard to build a new lineup and found 13 channels at 95-100% strength (some from 50+ miles away). How do I get guide data for these channels? The station identifier is listed - why doesn't BTV do the math and figure out what listings to go grab? I hope there is at least a way to configure this manually. Otherwise this is a showstopper on day 1.

I know you figured this out (used a nearby U.S. postal code instead of your Canadian postal code), but I just thought you might be interested in the background.

Our data provider simply doesn't have digital TV "contour" data for Canada -- or at least they didn't the last time I checked. So you can't enter a postal code in Canada and get a listing of the OTA digital channels that can be received in that postal code. I'm not sure why they don't have this data...