Alternative to WinTV V7 for Hauppauge HVR 900H USB tuner

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Alternative to WinTV V7 for Hauppauge HVR 900H USB tuner

steve2222

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#43017 15-Oct-2009 15:54

I have a Dell Vostro laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5870 with 4GB Dual Channel Ram and a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS video card (256MB) which Hauppauge tell me is plenty powerful enough for their device and decoding DVB-T.

However I am having frequent WinTV freezes and crashes which between Dell and Hauppauge there has been no resolution.

Can someone recomend another piece of software that will work with the Hauppauge device to give me DVB-T and analog for Auckland transmissions.

I really only want to watch TV while working in my study, and maybe a bit of recording. This is not a Media Centre and I am not too worried about no 8 day EPG.

I just want some software that gives reliable viewing without freezing and crashing.

Thx

Deev8

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#264100 15-Oct-2009 16:36

steve2222: I have a Dell Vostro laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5870 with 4GB Dual Channel Ram and a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS video card (256MB) which Hauppauge tell me is plenty powerful enough for their device and decoding DVB-T.

Hauppauge may, or may not be right about that. The point being that there is more to it than just "DVB-T".

If you were to take your laptop to the UK, you wouldn't have any problem watching, recording and playing-back their Freeview DVB-T transmissions. UK Freeview use MPEG-2 encoding for their transmissions, and decoding MPEG-2 transmissions isn't too demanding - well within the capabilities of most modern laptops.

Here in New Zealand Freeview use H264 encoding for terrestrial transmissions, which was done to allow High definition broadcasts. Decoding H264 transmissions is far more demanding, and it's possible that your laptop processor / graphics might not be up to the job.

sbiddle

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#264112 15-Oct-2009 17:31

GB-PVR, Media Portal or DVBViewer all work fine. You will also need PowerDVD8 as this contains a H.264 codec that is required for our broadcasts.

steve2222

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#264116 15-Oct-2009 17:45

Thanks Sbiddle.

I have an H.264 codec that came with WinTV (Arc Soft I think) - would that do?

steve2222

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#264118 15-Oct-2009 17:46

Thanks Deev8.

One of the WinTV developers is based in Wellington, so that gave me comfort when they said my hardware should be capable of running NZ DVB-T.