Which TV Tuner card should I get?

[Boreas]

Im looking at a Hauppauge HVR-1800:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/vie....hmx?scriteria=4427963

-or-

AverTV Combo:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...reativeASIN=B000MN8QR4


Both look good, the reviews I went though weren't really helpful, so im looking for your opinions or even a better alternative to the 2 I have. Thank you for your input!

 

[iluv2fly]

I bought a used AverTV Combo card for $50 on ebay.

I love it.

Installed it, vista found the drivers during an update and it worked right away.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Boreas
Im looking at a Hauppauge HVR-1800:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/vie....hmx?scriteria=4427963

-or-

AverTV Combo:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...reativeASIN=B000MN8QR4


Both look good, the reviews I went though weren't really helpful, so im looking for your opinions or even a better alternative to the 2 I have. Thank you for your input!

HDTV Tuner Card & USB HDTV Tuner Chart

OTA/Cable? NTSC/ATSC? Remote? What about your antenna if you need one? (Any multipath problems?) Recording? Timeshifting?

 

[Boreas]

NTSC, Digital would be nice, so would a remote. I use cable, no need for antenna. Timeshifting is not important to me. Recording is another feature I would like to try out.

 

[Boreas]

Forgot to add, would prefer hardware encoding to take the load off of the CPU.

Im not that picky as long as it has digital/HD capabilities and has hardware encoding.

 

[Pabster]

The AverTV is awesome. There's some new drivers that will allow QAM decryption, even via Windows Media Center. It's fantastic.

 

[Butterbean]

The new ATI TV Wonder with PCI-E 1X is out now (it used to be just PCI and no Clear QAM etc). Can't tell yet how good it is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16815129006

http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/PCIe/index.html

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Boreas
NTSC, Digital would be nice, so would a remote. I use cable, no need for antenna. Timeshifting is not important to me. Recording is another feature I would like to try out.

You can receive unencrypted cable ATSC with QAM - I get around 7 or 8 HD channels on regular (Charter) cable and around 2 dozen digital music stations (I guess they haven't gotten around to encrypting them yet). You will not be able to receive any encrypted digital premiun or movie channels without cablecard. Cablecard is only available (currently) in pre-built systems - primarily HP or Dell. Your cable company will (most likely) supply the card (for $3-$5 / month). I get over 40 ATSC channels OTA so I don't feel like I'm missing a great deal.

The Fusion5 has everything you need - and as your luck would have it - the time-shifting function is a little buggy (They may have fixed it in the latest drivers - I don't know - I don't use it anyway ) It has a recording scheduler and a remote which you can also use to cut your computer on and off. It also works with third party schedulers. Rogo on the hardware acceleration. It will play back your recorded HD (or *.tp) files w/5.1 audio, record in mpeg, Xvid and maybe a few more.

This is not an advertisement - lol. But if you decide to buy one, register and you will get a 10-15 percent discount.

Check out the AVS Forum for really good info on tuner cards or any htpc matters.