Best TV card for NZ

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Best TV card for NZ

malejunk

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#81489 13-Apr-2011 17:43

Over the Easter break I'm building my parents a HTPC

I live in Sydney where I'll be purchasing and building the unit, they live in Auckland, New Zealand

The HTPC is going to run Windows MC7

I intend to use the following card TV Card/Kit

Hauppauge HVR-2210 Media Centre Kit

http://www.newmagic.com.au/support/Files/Hauppauge_MCE_HVR2210.pdf

Is this a suitable/popular card for New Zealand? Its what's recommended for use in Australia. Will this work in NZ no problems?

What is the state of play for EPG in New Zealand. Is there a reliable source. I've not ever built a HTPC with a TV card so its all new to me. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

valtam

396 posts

Ultimate Geek

#458363 13-Apr-2011 18:47

From my time on these forums, many people seem to favour the HVR 2200, but going over that model you have listed I can't see much difference, both dual PCI-E digital/analogue tuners.

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LennonNZ

2459 posts

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#458371 13-Apr-2011 18:57

the 2200 and the 2210 are the same except the 2210 comes with the remote..

Nety

2584 posts

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#458533 14-Apr-2011 06:37

That card should be fine and is popular in NZ (well the 2200 version of it anyway). As for EPG suggest using http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcollector which will get the data over the air for you. Then use something like http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproduct.aspx?PID=BSEV1 to import it for you.

By the way I take it you do know that your parents can get DVB-T? Most of NZ is not covered.

Good luck!!

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

malejunk

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#458683 14-Apr-2011 12:57

Thanks Nety

Wikipedia says DVB-T is available to 75% of NZ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_%28New_Zealand%29

Their house is in Orewa (40kms north of Auckland)

My parents are luddites and I don't have any idea about the situation in NZ.

How would my parents know if they can, or are, receiving a DVB-T signal.

Any idea where can I find coverage maps.

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#458773 14-Apr-2011 15:28

malejunk: Their house is in Orewa (40kms north of Auckland). How would my parents know if they can, or are, receiving a DVB-T signal. Any idea where can I find coverage maps.

A coverage check is available here: http://www.freeviewnz.tv/get_freeview/
Looking at the maps it seems that area immediately surrounding Orewa is OK for DVB-T coverage, but if you move a short distance north to Waiwera (over the hill) reception gets far less likely.

malejunk: Wikipedia says DVB-T is available to 75% of NZ.

Like most statistics it needs some explanation. It means that 75% of the population can receive Freeview via DVB-T, and that 75% is concentrated in a number of relatively small areas. It definitely doesn't mean that 75% of NZ by area is covered.

malejunk: My parents are luddites

With a HTPC that would be a real concern. As much as we would like it to be, it's not a set-up then forget solution.

malejunk

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#458784 14-Apr-2011 15:47

Thanks Deev8, I think they will be okay for DVB-T. They are on the Northern cliff face of Orewa. On the hill looking south over Orewa beach.

Luddites and HTPC - Yeah this is a real worry for me because any problems they face will fall to me to fix and I live in Sydney. Any suggestions to make a WMC7 HTPC as rock solid as possible would be greatly appreciated.

I get the feeling its the TV recording/watching/EPG side of thing that will cause the most hassle. Playing MP3, DIVX/AVIS should work no problems.

geekiegeek

2513 posts

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#458790 14-Apr-2011 16:05

I would not build an HTPC for someone who is not technical. Its not a plug and play device.

I would get them mysky or a freeview PVR and something like a WDTV box for watching divx etc.

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Nety

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#459014 15-Apr-2011 06:33

+1 Media center's in all flavours are a two edged sword. Extremely powerful and able to beat any off the shelf device for versatility and flexibility BUT at the cost of reliability. If you are very lucky it could run without any hitches but in my experience you would be the exception. Often it is just small tweaks but you do need someone around that is able to support a MC or things go pear shaped very quickly.

waldoverkill

69 posts

Master Geek

#459027 15-Apr-2011 08:10

geekiegeek: I would not build an HTPC for someone who is not technical. Its not a plug and play device.

I would get them mysky or a freeview PVR and something like a WDTV box for watching divx etc.

I set up Vista MCE for my parents (70 plus) about 2-3 years ago. It has worked almost perfectly the whole time. Any problems they had could be fixed with a reboot.

I think a lot of the issues "Technical" people (including me) have are because we can't stop fiddling!

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#459212 15-Apr-2011 17:05

If you are not that familiar with NZ DVB-T broadcasts keep in mind that video is H.264, and for a workable HTPC you need to ensure that you have a video card, or motherboard GPU, that will support hardware acceleration for H.264, and ensure that it is enabled. All channels, apart from TV3, use HE-AAC audio so you need a suitable audio codec for that - if you don't already have something suitable the free Monogram AAC Decoder does a good job.

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#459215 15-Apr-2011 17:13

waldoverkill: I set up Vista MCE for my parents (70 plus) about 2-3 years ago. It has worked almost perfectly the whole time. Any problems they had could be fixed with a reboot.

I think you have been very lucky. I tend to take a "if it's working don't mess with it" approach to my HTPC and there have been a few things that have required some manual intervention over the past few months including:
An issue with changes to the broadcast MHEG-5 EPG which required installation of a new version of the EPG Collector application, and that in turn required some set-up changes.
Changes to channel line-ups with a HTPC doesn't handle automatically.

Not a big deal to anybody who frequents Geekzone, but a show-stopper for a lot of people.