Anyone after a good tv tuner with hardware encoding?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Anyone after a good tv tuner with hardware encoding?

elkano

160 posts

Master Geek

#29708 16-Jan-2009 00:45

Hi there,

just wondering if anyone has had experiences with the following?

http://shop.blackgold.tv/product/3500.html

Basicially i'm looking for a tv tuner with a hardware encoder that can receive analogue (sky STB connection) and DVB-T.
Another limitation I have is that it must be a PCI card (ruling out the HVR-2200).
The HVR-1300 does what I need, but the cheapest I could find it is about $160NZ.
For about the same price I could get the BGT3500 and have a dual tuner capable of doing hardware encoding in MPEG 1\2\4, DiVX or VC1 rather than just single tuner MPEG 2 encoder like the HVR-1300.

I know some guys got together a short time ago to order a bunch of the BGT3540 cards (6 in 1 tuner card) as it saves on shipping costs. Is anyone here interested in getting any of the blackgold tv tuner cards listed on their site?

If so, we could do another shipment together and save (it costs the same sending 3-4 cards as it does sending 1).
Remember, as we are ordering from overseas I believe we don't get charged for VAT!

Cheers,

Kano

****EDIT: price is actually $200 for the card****

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#189967 16-Jan-2009 11:32

I was one of the ones who bought a BGT3540 with others on hre. I am very happy with the card in general and it has given me no issues and works fine with dvb-t, dvb-s and analogue.

My only gripe is that although it does hav an s-video in plug, it does not have an audio-in plug. I tried using the soundcard line-in but I couldnt get the audio from the sky stb to sync with the video (which was delayed by half a second or so due to the tv card processing). I started a thread here to see if there was a way round it but apparently I stumped the entire GZ community as noone answered. Ended up having to shell out another $120 on a pvr-150 which works flawlessly.

Not sure if the 3500 has one sorry. Anyway, they are good cards but not the 100% all-in-one solution I was after due to missing audio input. I suppose you could run the coaxial cable out of the stb instead of s-video but the picture quality blows...

elkano

160 posts

Master Geek

#189974 16-Jan-2009 11:56

Hmm... that is a bit odd not to have an audio in, I better check the 3500 to see if it has one!
Basically I thought I could use it as a DVB-T and if needed use the analog side of things if i'm in the same situation as you and trying to get sky from the STB, if I can't get the audio its no good to me.

elkano

160 posts

Master Geek

#189978 16-Jan-2009 12:06

Wow, thanks for letting me know!

Just checked on the site and the 3500 doesn't have audio in either!

Basically I want it for the same reason you did, to connect from a sky STB or do straight DVB-T.
I did find this for it:

OEM Internal Header Connection Options* Video in 4 pin header Audio in analogue stereo header Audio Digital SPDIF in\out 4 pin header

Remote in put 4 pin header

But apparently thats only for system buliders getting high volumes of orders. Might query that, the card isn't worth getting without the connectors for audio (at least for me).

Still, I really like the look of it as it has hardware encoding for a lot of formats and it accepts Component inputs- so could use a SCART to component input from sky instead of just s-video (which is already good).

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#190006 16-Jan-2009 14:51

elkano: Basically I want it for the same reason you did, to connect from a sky STB or do straight DVB-T.

You could get an HVR-2200 for that?

Nety

2584 posts

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Retired Mod

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Lifetime subscriber

#190010 16-Jan-2009 15:23

Needs it to be PCI

Think you would need to check your figures too on cost. Using XE I came out at $220 excluding delivery.. that is quite a bit more then $160.

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elkano

160 posts

Master Geek

#190097 17-Jan-2009 00:39

You're right, think my $160 calc was for another card. the exchange rate was better when i did the original calculation too, would have been around $200.

Still not convinced about the audio inputs to the card, although I got the following reply:

The card does have sound inputs. There are extra connections on the S-Video socket for sound input, or as you mention pin headers on the card.

I will query further about the sound inputs, unless someone can shed further light on extra audio connections on s-video?

Regs

4066 posts

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Snowflake

#190104 17-Jan-2009 01:10

you could always grab one of the old hauppauge PVR cards from trademe for the SKY hookups and a seperate Nova-T-500 card for dual DVB-T assuming you have a couple of PCI slots

e.g.
PVR350 BN $40 http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Components/Other-PCI-cards/auction-197409499.htm
Nova-T-500 current bid @ $40 http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Components/Other-PCI-cards/auction-197796355.htm

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mcraenz

1140 posts

Uber Geek

#190677 20-Jan-2009 01:00

Why PCI? If your board is not PCIe then you have little hope of getting freeviewHD up and running smothly. Or have you just got no spare PCIe slots?

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elkano

160 posts

Master Geek

#190722 20-Jan-2009 09:53

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the help.

Yep, looking for a PCI card. My motherboard is only a mini-ATX and I'm trying to keep the PCI-E free for a soundcard capable of bitstreaming blu-ray audio (once the cards that can do it are stable!)
I have 2 PCI slots and one is currently filled with an Hauppauge HVR-4000. Only just got things set up in MediaPortal (had to move house over the weekend so not much time to fiddle with settings) but the DVB-T side of things seems to be working fine using PowerDVD codec and hardware decoding of the onboard ATI 3200 of my Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard.
No issues of yet, although I realise there could be using the onboard solution.

So basically, I am looking for another card that does analog hardware encoding of MPEG-2 in case I want to have a connection to a sky STB and it also has to be capable of DVB-T whilst being a PCI card. The Hauppauge HVR-1300 seems to fit the bill, but I was looking at the blackgold 3500 as it offers more decoding options and dual tuners. Still, with a $200 price point is a bit of a stretch.