Recommended HD OTA tuner card?

[Denithor]

QAM would be nice also, for when I get cable again.

What software should I use?

TIA!

 

[erwos]

Best choice? SiliconDust HDHomeRun. Can't recommend it enough.

 

[BornStar]

I've got a Hauppauge 2250 that I use for OTA and it works pretty well using a cheap indoors antenna to pull in stations that are about 15 miles away. I tried tuning QAM with it but I could never get it to work. I frequently wish I had just gotten a HDHomeRun.

 

[Mloot]

I use both a Dvico Fusion5 Lite card and an Avermedia A180 card in my pc. My antenna input goes into a 2-way splitter to both cards, so both cards receive the same signal. The Dvico card can pull in signals almost as well as my newer converter box, but it drops the signals on weak stations more often (it uses a generation older tuner). Now, the Avermedia card is the worst of the bunch. My local PBS station is broadcasting a lower power signal until the main switchover in June, and while the Dvico card pulls it in almost always, the Avermedia has yet to get a lock on it.

As far as software, I use BeyondTV for recording programs. BTV is a great overall pvr program, plus I like its interface and program guide. For just casual tv watching I use the Dvico program. It starts up a bit faster than BTV. The Avermedia software blows chunks. That program routinely crashes, and many times will stall during a channel scan. When that happens, I have to use the task manager to end it.

I am running WinXP Home Edition.

If I had the $$, I would swap out my Avermedia card for the newer Dvico Fusion7 dual-tuner card. It should pull in stations as well as anything else out there atm.

EDIT: The A180 has a QAM tuner. I hooked it up to my cable a while back and it was able to find several clear QAM stations, but it also picked up several dozen encrypted stations. I had to go through each station to delete the encrypted ones, and the clunky Avermedia software made watching the clear QAM stations more of a pain than it should have been. Aside from choppy reception, the program often crashed for no apparent reason. I switched the A180 to OTA HD only.

AFAIK, BTV is not capable of using a card's QAM tuner.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Hauppauge 2250 here, it works well with every signal I've thrown at it, digital cable, analog cable & OTA, it's a hybrid tuner and will decode 2 analog signals or 2 digital signals or one of each. It's my 3rd Hauppauge tuner, would buy again.

Am currently running the pre release beta drivers under WMC in W7.

I also have a AverMedia Hybrid Express Card in my notebook, it works well also.

IMHO, the most important thing is to buy a card with hardware decoding for smooth playback.

 

[Denithor]

So, in the running right now:

DViCO FusionHDTV7 Dual Express $140
Hauppauge 2250 $130
SiliconDust HDHomeRun $160

From one of the newegg reviews on the HDHomeRun.

I have this hooked directly into my HTPC. If you hook it up to your router, you probably need a wired connection directly into the router to optimize data transfers. You can't do HD over wireless due to bandwidth limitations unless you have a N-router.

Looks like you can either plug into a router & stream to any networked computers or directly into an ethernet jack on your PC? I only have a G router so I probably would have to plug straight into my PC. How do you have yours set up, erwos?

Anyone else have any input on these three models and/or other options?

What's the best format to save the shows you record?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Looks like you can either plug into a router & stream to any networked computers or directly into an ethernet jack on your PC? I only have a G router so I probably would have to plug straight into my PC. How do you have yours set up, erwos?

Well, you'd be plugging it into your router's ethernet ports. The HDHomeRun only runs at 10/100, so any cheap switch will do if you need to get some more ports in the mix. I don't even remember if they support running it directly via crossover cable - I doubt I'd recommend doing that.

I gave mine to my father a while back - migrated to CableCards via TiVo HD. When I had it, I had it plugged into my network on a switch, and used Windows Media Center. Worked perfectly.

 

[mshan]

http://www.watchhdtv.net is nice, simple hdtv program (you have to provide own video codecs, but can typically use those with any software dvd program you have).

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: erwos
Well, you'd be plugging it into your router's ethernet ports. The HDHomeRun only runs at 10/100, so any cheap switch will do if you need to get some more ports in the mix. I don't even remember if they support running it directly via crossover cable - I doubt I'd recommend doing that.

I'm in a sticky situation. The house is not wired upstairs for phone or cable so we have the router (802.11G) downstairs plugged into the DSL modem. My PC is upstairs and not going to move.

Will 802.11G handle HD content transmission or am I going to lose clarity and/or have stuttering?

Can you plug this device straight into a ethernet jack on a PC with a standard cable?

Amazon has the HDHomeRun on sale for $142 so I'd like to know...

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Denithor
I'm in a sticky situation. The house is not wired upstairs for phone or cable so we have the router (802.11G) downstairs plugged into the DSL modem. My PC is upstairs and not going to move.

Will 802.11G handle HD content transmission or am I going to lose clarity and/or have stuttering?

802.11g is marginal. I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Can you plug this device straight into a ethernet jack on a PC with a standard cable?

It would seem so, from the software changelog:

libhdhomerun: Add lightweight DHCP server code for direct-connect use.

Haven't tried it, but if they claim it works, it works. They have the best software, driver, and firmware support I've ever seen - that alone is worth the slight premium, IMHO.

 

[Denithor]

Ok, you convinced me - just purchased at Amazon for $142 shipped.

😛

Now let's hope I can get this thing working, tired of watching my mom's ancient 21" tube TV. Stuff should look a lot better in OTA HD on my 27" Dell.

Hmm...wonder if I could just plug in a spare router, plug this into it, then the router into my PC? Still use the wireless for internet but feed the HDHR's signal through a standard wired router...

BTW what kind of antenna do I need? I live within 10-15 miles of most of the local broadcasting networks in Charlotte, NC.

 

[heyheybooboo]

What OS, Denithor?

 

[Denithor]

Vista Ultimate 64-bit

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Denithor
BTW what kind of antenna do I need? I live within 10-15 miles of most of the local broadcasting networks in Charlotte, NC.

You'll want a directional antenna, plus a powered splitter so that you can feed both jacks on the HDHR.

I think you will be quite happy with your purchase. The only reason I still don't have mine is because I wanted to be able to watch Discovery in HD, and that's not a clear QAM channel. WMC is better than TiVo, IMHO.

 

[Denithor]

Directional like this Terk HDTVa? And is that going to be better than this Terk HDTVi (not amplified)?

And what is this "powered splitter" you mention? Why do I need one and where can I find one?

 

[Mloot]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Directional like this Terk HDTVa? And is that going to be better than this Terk HDTVi (not amplified)?

And what is this "powered splitter" you mention? Why do I need one and where can I find one?

How far away are you from your local antenna farm? Sometimes amplified indoor antennas work well, but alot of times it is something of a crapshoot.

 

[Denithor]

10-15 miles from the major transmitters in town.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Denithor
And what is this "powered splitter" you mention? Why do I need one and where can I find one?

I think they sell them at RadioShack - it's just a coax splitter that has an amp built in, so that you don't halve or quarter your signal strength when you split the coax line that's attached to your antenna. The HDHR has _two_ coax jacks on it, one for each tuner - you need to hook up both. They should be reasonably cheap, IIRC.

 

[Denithor]

...so that I can tune two different channels simultaneously, right? Even though it's hooked up to the same antenna?

Speaking of antennas, here are the models I'm considering:

Terk HDTVa
Terk HDTVi
Winegard SS-3000
HDTV Indoor/Outdoor Antenna

Is it mostly just a crapshoot or are some antennas actually better than others?
What is the real difference between amplified and passive (is there a difference)?
What kind of cable do I need to connect to the antenna? (I've seen references to something called RG-6 but have no idea what that is - help!)

 

[heyheybooboo]

RG-6 is the coax cable - linky

You don't really need both connectors unless you plan to record a different channel while you are watching something else. The HDHR doesn't do 'Picture-in-Picture' - the Fusion does with dual tuners.

HDHR uses VLC and should also work with MCE on your Vista (I've never tried it with '64').

Using VLC with the HDHR seemed a little 'clunky' to me compared to the Divco Fusion interface. I had a separate window from which I had to select channels and I never grew comfortable with the recording setup

You should be able to connect it directly to your Ethernet port instead of a switch or a router.

That's actually good because if I tried to launch VLC from another node I would kick someone off the HDHR who was using VLC on another node.

And it was odd (in Vista Premium 32) every time I would change channels I would get another orange cone in my task bar - so if I was flipping through channels I would end up with 12 little orange cones - LOL - by moving my cursor over them they would all disappear (except for one).

So MCE it should be IMO with the HDHR ... Media Center uses the DVR-MS file format for recording, which is MPEG-2 video in a Microsoft proprietary file wrapper.

I'm really down on MCE right now. PlayReady is pissing me off royally in Win7/MCE. It's killed my audio in my Fusion interface but in W7MCE scanned all my locals and works fine.

MCE in Vista is a whole 'nother can of worms. Everytime I apply the 'patch' something in my video/audio screws up and I have to to a system restore (and the Media Center TV Pack 2008 for Vista is only available to OEMs so I'm ewed-scrayed there).

The 'Zulu' encoders with Fusion always worked well for me (especially in XP). With Vista my system seems to force the MS "Unified Video Encoder'. It works but is not my preference (cpu utilization is sometimes 30% higher). I don't know if this will be the case with the HDHR on Vista.

I got this exterior Low-Profile Omnidirectional Amplified TV Antenna on the cheap from the Shack in Cornelius 3 years ago - they were phasing the model out. Then I think they discovered how well it works for HD OTA so they brought the model back and jacked up the price 33% - LOL.

I painted it cedar-tone in color, nailed it on the side of the house (pointed in your general direction) and generally get 100% signal strength at 30%+ DBs. WTVI gives me trouble from time-to-time (I think they cut back their wattage) but I get channel 58 so np. I think I'm 18-20 miles max from the 'towers' (west of Hooterville in EL - when I'm down off the mountain)

I temporarily set it up for the little woman (in Old Providence) in tring to get her to dump TWC (it didn't work - dumping TWC - but the antenna did). Got all my regulars including SC PBS with the antenna hanging in a tree 7 feet off the ground - heh heh.

 

[Denithor]

heyheybooboo - thanks for the advice!

I'm staying with my mom atm unfortunately, don't want to put up a dish on her roof or anything - and don't want to punch holes in the walls for cables - so an outdoor mount is out.

I might be able to put this in the attic & run a single hole through the ceiling to drop the cable to my PC.

But I'd rather just look at indoor models instead.