Two questions.

[Denithor]

What are the real differences between plasma & LCD screens these days? I currently have a 32" Sony Bravia (KDL-V32XBR2) that is about 1.5 years old and have been thinking about upgrading to a larger screen. Looking at maybe a 46" Sony LCD (one of the 120hz models) but am curious about plasma screens.

Second, looking for a good tuner card for watching basic cable (non digital). Is clear QAM even an issue if you don't already have digital cable? Because if I could grab some HD over the standard cable that would be cool. Otherwise I need a card with an OTA tuner function (any indoor antenna recommendations?).

TIA

 

[sivart]

The cable company must give you unencrypted (i.e. available with a QAM tuner) any 'must carry' stations (most of the time your locals). That being said there is no requirement that they carry them in HD. TWC in my area recently took away the HD locals via QAM and wasted bandwidth with an SD version of it (basically duplicating all of the local channels in the digital level). So, they took away the ability to get local HD's on all my HDTV's , so I took away my business from them. If I have to pay for a box for every TV to get any HD stations, I'd rather pay AT&T.

I prefer plasma displays, but a lot has to do with your viewing environment and how you plan to use the TV. I stay away from Sony products myself as all 10 of them I've owned, only 2 haven't failed. (One a 15 year old alarm clock and the other my PS3). So, I will tell you to never buy a Sony product, but that is based on my experience.

 

[heyheybooboo]

For whatever reason I get a bunch of unencrypted HD from my provider (begins with a Ch- and ends with an -arter). I get my local channels, some local channels from another market, some channels I don't really give a crap about (Fine Living? LOL) and a bunch of digital music channels. I use a Divco Fusion5. When they have the 'free' movie channel weekends I get all of those in HD, too (and the ol' DVR function is pumped for 72-96 hours of recording ...). All I've got is the expanded basic service (which is around 75 analog channels) and when I do my 'channel scan' the Fusion tuner card picks up the unencrypted digital.

Sony let me down on my 40-inch HD monitor. It had a bad board that was subject to 'intermittent' failure before giving up completely after 14 months. There are a bunch of p'ed off Sony customers who purchased that model (KLV40U100M) and were refused any expanded warranty service on their $2,000 'lemons'.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
For whatever reason I get a bunch of unencrypted HD from my provider (begins with a Ch- and ends with an -arter). I get my local channels, some local channels from another market, some channels I don't really give a crap about (Fine Living? LOL) and a bunch of digital music channels. I use a Divco Fusion5. When they have the 'free' movie channel weekends I get all of those in HD, too (and the ol' DVR function is pumped for 72-96 hours of recording ...). All I've got is the expanded basic service (which is around 75 analog channels) and when I do my 'channel scan' the Fusion tuner card picks up the unencrypted digital.

So you're in the same boat as me, tier two analog cable -- and you get a smattering of HD channels & digital music channels through that wire. Good to know.

How do you like the Fusion5? What recording software do you use?

I see now the Fusion7 is available for ~$100 which looks like a good deal. How does that stack up against the other cards out there (MyHD MDP-130, Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800, AVerMedia AVerTV)

Sony let me down on my 40-inch HD monitor. It had a bad board that was subject to 'intermittent' failure before giving up completely after 14 months. There are a bunch of p'ed off Sony customers who purchased that model (KLV40U100M) and were refused any expanded warranty service on their $2,000 'lemons'.

Ouch. Fortunately I've not had that experience with my Sony, all's still good 1.5 years into ownership. I just want something bigger for the living room now that prices have fallen into more reasonable ranges. And not sure if I want to go plasma or LCD this time.

 

[heyheybooboo]

The Fusion has its own recording software and scheduling software - I can't recall but I believe that it works with TitanTV EPG, maybe others. At AVS there used to be a guy named Cliff Watson (may he RIP) who developed a programming guide for recording - I never used it but folks talked highly of it. It also has a file conversion tool (the HD broadcast 'transport streams' files are effectively mpeg2 with ACC audio).

Be forewarned! Your 'Local' TV in HD will have sub-channels. You can designate a 'single' sub-channel capture when you record - if not your transport stream will contain all of the other sub-channels (local weather, kids, etc). Your 'analog' cable will record in conventional mpeg2.

I bought an A/B switch from Radio Shack to compare my 'cable' HD local to OTA local broadcasts. I'm not an overly discerning nutjob about it but the over-the-air broadcasts 'captured' from my antenna seem much better from a quality standpoint

The only problem I ever had was with the timeshift function. I disabled it because I didn't use it anyway. This was a couple years ago and IIRC it has been 'fixed' in a driver update.

If you purchase the 'dual' tuner you can record one channel while watching another. You can also do 'picture-in-picture' with the dual tuner (you can do single tuner 'PIP' with the Fusion7). Another neat thing about the Fusion is you get an extra 'switch wire' which will allow you to re-route the computer on/off switch thru the tuner card (and then connect the tuner card to the pin-out on the mobo). The Fusion card will turn on the computer while you are away for scheduled recording.

It should work well with Vista64 - I wouldn't be so certain about Media Center. There seem to be 'issues' with MCE and unencrypted QAM. Check out the AVS Forums for specific questions about your setup and what you may like to do ...

Here's a bunch of tuner card comparisons ...
http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/comparetuners.html

 

[Denithor]

Looks like the Fusion7 is one of the better cards available right now.

Anyone have any input on the plasma versus LCD topic? I'm looking in the 46" range if that helps.