Tuner Recommendations?

[Sarphram]

I'm considering purchasing a TV tuner card for my computer, as the idea of digitally recording shows appeals to me. I'm not really sure what's good and what isn't, so I'm looking here for some ideas. Has to be a PCI card, as my mobo doesn't have any PCI-e slots. A card that can record HDTV signals would be nice. Also, does anyone know if a card purchased today will still work when all cable signals are converted to digital from analog? (Supposed to happen in 2009 I think, granted this is a long lifetime for a card but still...)

Thanks for any input.

 

[Sarphram]

Is there no input?

 

[Zekey]

Currently, I have 2 Hauppag PVR-150s fr standard Cable, I don;t do any HD, so I can't help there. Also, the "DualTV MCE" by Nvidia and the Theater 550 by ATi are great competitors.

 

[Sarphram]

I saw something about a Theatre 650 coming out/being out, think it'd be worth it to wait for that one? Also, would there be any problems with driver conflicts if, for example, I got an ATI tuner since I'm running Omega Drivers? I ask because I'm not sure what software/drivers would be installed with a tuner. I'm also curious about how the cards do audio. If I recall, some of the ones that I've seen run an external cord to the line in on a soundcard, but I think I saw one that has you run an cd analog cable to your soundcard inside your case.

 

[broly8877]

The 650 is pretty much the 550 plus the ability to tune into over the air HD programming (antenna needed).

Personally, I think that's pointless. I'd get a $60 Theater 550, and wait for cablecard/satellite tuners (which are said to come in 07 shortly after vista)

 

[Wellsoul2]

I really like my ATI HDTV Wonder PCI card.

I got it for $85 used total shipped.

Comes with remote control and ok antenna for HDTV over the air.

It does Tivo-Like TV on demand and you can record HD and analog.

It has a multimedia center software similar to XP mediacenter.

It works with AVIVO. Works best if you also have ATI video bd. (I have 9600XT AGP)

I use it with a 27in widescreen LCDTV and my 19in LCD monitor.

I had to buy another indoor antenna- a $50 remote controlled Radio SHack HDTV one.

Works great..gets all 20 HDTV over the air channels perfectly. I can tune the antenna

with a remote from across the room. Also can play videos on Yahoo using the remote.

For the price it's great. Does not do Cable/Qam decode..just Over the Air HDTV plus
regular analog tv. It's free HDTV though..and it will export to any DVD format.

It can be quirky to setup but works perfect for me. It even has custom aspect ratio scaling for DVD movies. (Has aspect ratio scaling for TV as well)

 

[Sarphram]

How does it handle sound? And what do you think about the software that came with it?

 

[Wellsoul2]

Originally posted by: Sarphram
How does it handle sound? And what do you think about the software that came with it?

It has two options for sound..downmix to stereo and passthru to optical out.
Actually three..you can do dolby surround.
It requires a sound card.

Because it's software the dolby surround decode option causes stutter
on my Opteron 148 which is doing MPEG4 decode as well.
Well..it's minor stutter..maybe a dual CPU would handle it.
(Sound is great in stereo then upmixed by Logitech 5.1 anyway)

The software is fine. It's like XP Media edition.
Play dvd...HDTV..TV..Photo's etc.
It does Tivo-like TV on Demand and record HDTV.

THe board works with BeyondTV..I've tried free version but I prefer
ATI . If you have XP Media Edition it works with that. (Don't have it)

The crappy software part is the TV listings as you get them free but only
for analog TV. So you can't set it to record HDTV with it.
(You can just set it manually to record at a set time though)

DVD movies played with the software play sound directly to the sound card
with no downmix.

For the price it's great and no cable bill for 20 HDTV stations and multimedia PC.

 

[Sarphram]

Thanks for the input so far, still looking for a few more opinions though.

 

[darkswordsman17]

It looks like two of the better solutions as far as price go would be the MyHD HPD-130 and the DVICO Fusion 5. The MyHD features hardware encoding/recording, while the Fusion 5 is just software. Also apparently only the MyHD can actually record analog signals as well.

A Theater 650 card would be nice, and you could get HD if you live fairly close (~30 miles) to a broadcast antenna. Otherwise, and also you might even have trouble then, as it can only get OTA ATSC signals. I don't think that they can add QAM support after the fact, so I don't think there's any way to get it on them.

If you have cable then you'll want a card that decodes clear QAM (which is cables unencrypted stream) in order to get the hi-def stuff.

Unfortunately at this time, Hi-Def is fairly messed up. You'll get some people telling you to wait for ATi's OCUR and go cablecard, but I don't think thats going to be all that great. Cable companies haven't exactly embraced cablecard, and I think you'll have to run Vista to be able to use it (so who knows how long you'll end up waiting for it). Simply put, I think its going to end up being a pain, but we'll see.

So here's how I see it. If you're focus is analog, then go with a Theater 550 or maybe a 650 based card. If you live close to a tower, then I would definitely go with the 650 as you'd get free HD. Although its worth noting that I haven't seen anything on its digital capability, so it could end up being very bad. The MyHD would be the best as far as watching/recording HD if you have cable, but if you have a high end system the Fusion 5 wouldn't be bad (but you won't be able to record regular analog). However with the MyHD you'll lose analog quality. If you have the money, then I'd say go for the best of both worlds, with a Theater 550 (or maybe 650) and the MyHD card. This way you can watch or record analog or HD at the same time.

I've been looking into this myself lately. I think there are other options but they're quite a bit more expensive and I don't know that they would be any better. I PM'ed the user SynthDude because he owns the MyHD card and asked for his thoughts on it.

 

[Sarphram]

I've kind of been eyeing this card, seems like it has a Theatre 550 on it. If possible I'd rather just get one card instead of two, as at the moment I don't plan on doing a whole lot of recording, and I don't think there's a whole lot of HD around here at the moment. Any idea on when the 650 will be in a card?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Sarphram
I've kind of been eyeing this card, seems like it has a Theatre 550 on it. If possible I'd rather just get one card instead of two, as at the moment I don't plan on doing a whole lot of recording, and I don't think there's a whole lot of HD around here at the moment. Any idea on when the 650 will be in a card?

They've said sometime in July, so anytime now.

You can get a Theater 550 based tuner card for about $60 now. Powercolor or Sapphire or one of the long-time ATi 2nd parties, so it'll be just as good as the ATi one.

 

[Sarphram]

darkswordsman17: have you heard back from Synthdude?

Also, for those of you that use BeyondTV, how well does it perform? I found the site and saw a few bundle options for the software, and either a PVR-150MCE or PVR-150 that look like they could be a good buy.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: Wellsoul2
I had to buy another indoor antenna- a $50 remote controlled Radio SHack HDTV one.

Is this it?