hardware difference between usb and pci/e dvb-t tuners

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › hardware difference between usb and pci/e dvb-t tuners

pwntj00

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#69864 14-Oct-2010 12:30

Hi guys,

I am curious to know what the hardware differences are between these two types of tuners. Ignoring analog and FM.

Ultimately I want to know if PCI tuners are less taxing on the CPU when watching HD streams.

My understanding is they're virtually identical... If someone could break it down in technical terms that'd be great.

Thanks

mcraenz

1140 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 222

#394899 22-Oct-2010 22:00

Don't know the very technical differences in how the buses interface with the CPU and memory but few things to keep mind are:
1) If you don't have any of one particular slot type you can't use a tuner of that type. (Dur!)

2) PCIe is newer and so you might expect that the newer DVB-T cards may have some design improvements over older models.

3) The DVB-T card has nothing to do with watching HD streams. The DVB-T device only deals with data. Watching/playing the HD video is done by graphics card, CPU codecs, media player etc.

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Athlonite

1828 posts

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Inactive user

#397922 30-Oct-2010 23:56

Right here goes

basically an USB DVB-t stick uses your CPU to do all the work whereas an actual tuner card whether it's PCI or the newer PCI-e will have it's own built in signal processor relieving the CPU of a majority of the workload and only require software to view the output

also PCI or PCIe cards may have multiple tuners built in allowing the viewing and recording of separate TV shows

shermanp

357 posts

Ultimate Geek
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Trusted

#397942 31-Oct-2010 02:21

Athlonite: Right here goes

basically an USB DVB-t stick uses your CPU to do all the work whereas an actual tuner card whether it's PCI or the newer PCI-e will have it's own built in signal processor relieving the CPU of a majority of the workload and only require software to view the output

Actually, that only applies to analog cards, and even then a lot of the cheaper tuners didn't/don't include a hardware encoder.

Any DVB-T device, whether USB/PCI/PCIe is basically a specialized network adaptor. It receives the raw data and dumps it to the hard disk.

When viewing modern digital TV -- especially HD -- the graphics card is what is doing the brunt of the work (if you have a compatible graphics card that is).

Granted, if the tuners are hybrid, the above statement may be correct, but only applies to the analog capabilities (I don't know of any hybrid USB tuners with a hardware encoder).

Internal cards may (or may not...) have better quality tuners (greater sensitivity, faster channel changing etc), and/or multiple tuners per card. Some also include extras like an FM radio tuner, and video capture.