Anyone here use Vbox Cats Eye 164e dual atsc hd tuner?

[ttown]

Does anyone here have the Vbox Cats Eye 164e dual hd tuner?

THIS CARD

I'm considering adding it to a htpc setup.

final setup would be:
biostar tf7050-m2 w/s-vid, hdmi
athlon 64 x2 4000+
2gb ddr2-800 ram
ati hdtv wonder (pci)
vbox 164e dual hdtv tuner (pci-e)
win xp pro
gb-pvr (haven't checked compatability yet)

The vbox 164e would give me a total of 3 hd tuners -- and most importantly, only take one slot.
All hdtv is OTA -- no qam needed.

Currently need s-vid for existing tv. (Will buy hd someday)

Can anyone comment on the card? Or see problems with my set-up?

Thanks-
ttown

 

[ttown]

*bump*

who's had experience with vbox?

 

[cfar305]

I've had one for a couple months. Works well, although I don't have extensive experience with other tuners to be able to really compare. I've been using SageTV as front-end for it, and haven't really done much with utilizing both inputs at same time. I am planning on switching to Vista and run Media Center.

 

[undeclared]

I can't tell if it has a hardware encoder or not. This is a big deal generally (although I guess for HDTV signals, it sends it in pure digital, so that's not a problem at all).. Generally thats a make-it-or-break-it for me, because otherwise Analog Recording takes 100% CPU (as compared to 20% maybe?)..

I believe *and cannot confirm right now* that HDTV recording takes no cpu, because its already encoded into mpeg-2, and its pure digital.. (Hence it's like writing to disk instead of encoding THEN writing to disk)

I would find out either way.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: xtwells
I can't tell if it has a hardware encoder or not. This is a big deal generally (although I guess for HDTV signals, it sends it in pure digital, so that's not a problem at all).. Generally thats a make-it-or-break-it for me, because otherwise Analog Recording takes 100% CPU (as compared to 20% maybe?)..

I believe *and cannot confirm right now* that HDTV recording takes no cpu, because its already encoded into mpeg-2, and its pure digital.. (Hence it's like writing to disk instead of encoding THEN writing to disk)

I would find out either way.

Also - the question with the ATSC tuner hardware MPEG-2 encoders becomes a matter of audio output. ATSC MPEG-2 transport streams allow multichannel audio encoding with up to 5.1 channels (Dolby Digital, or AC-3). and (good & bad!) Advanced Audio Coding.

Some tuners output/decode to AC-3 or are capable of passing-thru the AC-3 signal. Some tuner cards output/decode stereo - some ?? who knows ???

 

[ttown]

Found 1 review at at hdtvtunerinfo

One of their test scenarios on an Athlon 64 3200+ w/512MB ram and XP MCE indicates ~50% cpu use while recording 1 HDTV and watching 1 HDTV simultaneously.

The card has supposedly been out for 6 months -- but there's supprisingly little in the way of reviews and discussion.
Other than a few people over at avsforums, there's not much.

I'd hate to blow $200 on a POS tuner. On the other hand, I'd love to be recording 2 simultaneous hd shows at once.