Please help me choose a tv tuner

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Please help me choose a tv tuner

ZALMAN

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#70685 28-Oct-2010 20:42

Hi there as above I'm looking for a dvb-t tv tuner

Would like to be able to record two channels at once. Freeview hd only

Just in the process of building another htpc built one a couple of years ago but the live tv wasn't reliable so I'm going to give It another go.

Any ideas or recommendations much appreciated

valtam

396 posts

Ultimate Geek

#397045 28-Oct-2010 21:44

What OS?

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ZALMAN

259 posts

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#397048 28-Oct-2010 21:48

Opps sorry win 7 most likely 64 bit wanting to be able to run everything in media centre
And have a setup that has the WAF

Regs

4066 posts

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Snowflake

#397075 28-Oct-2010 22:43

if you have a spare pci-x slot then this hauppauge HVR2200 is pretty popular:
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=6358

others have success with avermedia:
http://qmb.co.nz/p.aspx?110211

otherwise the Nova-T-500HD is another popular choice:
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=6218

another really good option is the HD Homerun. With this device you access the tuners over the network and you can share them amongst multiple HDTVs. You also remove a heat source from within your PC and save an expansion slot
http://www.silicondust.co.nz/

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ZALMAN

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#397152 29-Oct-2010 08:17

Ok thanks regs
I was looking at the 2200 which could be the go for me

The homerun looks good also, which would you recomend? I dont really need to network the tuner through the house although I guess if I got it working I may use it. I would also mean having another box lying around.

Disrespective

1926 posts

Uber Geek

#397176 29-Oct-2010 09:28

ZALMAN: Ok thanks regs
I was looking at the 2200 which could be the go for me

The homerun looks good also, which would you recomend? I dont really need to network the tuner through the house although I guess if I got it working I may use it. I would also mean having another box lying around.

I have both the HD and 2200, they're really pretty much the same beast except the HD needs an external splitter to get two cables to the box whereas the 2200 does the splitting internally and you only need to send one cable to it. And the whole networked tuners thing of course.

I use the HD for the WAF as she can watch TV on her laptop anywhere in the apartment which also comes in handy for me too.

HD's can be a little hard to come by at times so if you want one, email around now to make sure there is stock available.

Regs

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Snowflake

#397607 29-Oct-2010 23:58

if i had the money to spare, i'd go for the hdhomerun no question. the 2200 is about 1/3 the price though... (and in stock)

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ArcticSilver

729 posts

Ultimate Geek

#397632 30-Oct-2010 03:17

Personally after having some issues with Hauppauge im steering clear of them.

We bought a Avermedia Twinstar which has dual DVB-T tuners (its like 2 cards in one).

It worked perfectly without issues from the word go on Windows 7 64 bit. It also has standard composite in (including audio) which works perfectly with a sky decoder.

If you have your mind set in Hauppauge i would stear clear of the 500 series. We returned our 500TD because it had far too many performance issues on windows 7.

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Mattnzl

281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#397636 30-Oct-2010 07:04

Has anyone tried the "AVerMedia HD HomeFree Duet"? It's a dual tuner HD networked unit like the Homerun, but at half the price.
http://ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=390811

The only potential snag with it is that it's not obvious if it can integrate with a media center program, or only use it's own program.

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#397810 30-Oct-2010 18:52

ZALMAN: Just in the process of building another htpc built one a couple of years ago but the live tv wasn't reliable so I'm going to give It another go.

As you have specifically mentioned issues with live TV in the past, I thought I would be worth mentioning my experiences which may or may not be relevant.

I have two tuner cards in my PC, a Hauppauge HVR-2200 and a Hauppauge Nova 500-TD giving me 4 tuners in total. When I originally built the PC I installed the HVR-2200. That gave me flawless recordings using both its digital terrestrial and analogue tuners, but I did have occasional issues if I tried to watch live Freeview|HD. Specifically I experienced sound glitches and drop-outs, not all of the time but often enough to be annoying if I had been relying on the PC for live TV viewing.

Around a year later I wanted to add more tuners and bought the Nova 500-TD to install as a second tuner card. Because of my setup live TV always defaults to using one of the Nova 500-TD tuners, and I haven't experienced a live TV sound glitch since then. It's so good that I've retired my old Freeview|HD set-top box and use the PC for all my live TV viewing as well as recordings.

My setup uses the onboard video on my Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard, and I run GB-PVR under 32-bit Windows Vista. It's quite possible that my observations are only valid for that particular setup.