AverMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180

[CodeMonkey]

Geez, I can pick this up for $85 delivered from newegg. I have no desire to watch TV on my computer screen. But what would happen if I had this card receiving a HDTV station via MP and had my nVidia FX5200 sending the video out to my non HD ready TV via svideo? Black screen, garbage, crappy looking video, smoke ???

For that price I may have to pick one up

[Marcusb]

Shouldn't be any issues at all, unless I am missing something in your post...

Non HD TV's can still play HD channels, you just won't get the full clarity.

[dman_lfc]

In other words - MP will scale it down - it will be fine.

DMAN

[PLeblanc]

The Aver card requires an analog card in the machine also. That may be limiting in the future. Dvico's new fusion5 lite is only $99, and it isn't restricted like that (of course, it isn't supported yet either). But all indications are that prices may be coming down, so you might not need to jump on this AverMedia card just because it is inexpensive.

[Marcusb]

I wasn't going to say anything, but since it has already been raised, here goes.
I wouldn't touch Aver stuff. Terrible software and awful support in general.
As stated there are other, much better cards around for roughly the same price...

[dman_lfc]

Actually it's a whitebox card - all you get is the drivers.
The chipset is the Philips 713x series which is very good and the card has analogue capture inputs for video and sound which is also handled without connecting a cable to the soundcard internally. (unlike Dvico)
As for the support - who cares - it has BDA drivers as it's built for MCE so I doubt you'll never need to call Aver.

You don't need an analogue card in the machine also - whats that all about?
The FusionHDTV5 variants are supported.

DMAN

[PLeblanc]

I've seen it posted in several places that to get that avermedia HD card working you need to already have an analog card in the machine.

http://www.aver.com/products/tvtuner...mce_a180.shtml

"Users will need to have an analog TV tuner card (like UltraTV 1500 MCE, AVerTV PVR 150 or AVerMedia M150) preinstalled in the system in order to get AVerTVHD MCE A180 to work properly in Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005"

If you have experience that contradicts Avermedia's statement, please post it, because I'm sure there are people interested in the card who find this troublesome like I do.

[dman_lfc]

Yes that is very strange indeed - but that is Windows MediaCenter edition - not MediaPortal.
The equivalent DVB-T hybrid card (A16A) which uses the same chipset works fine.

Maybe it's because MCE can't handle Hybrid cards so to get analogue to be seen by MCE you need to add a seperate card.
Having a proper PVR card for analogue capture is the best way anyway.

I'll put in a call to the US to find out - just to be sure they aren't doing something weird.

DMAN

[PLeblanc]

I'm regretting more and more that I bought media center edition rather than plain old XP home.

[dman_lfc]

It seems AverMedia has shot themselves in the foot again.
I spoke to some bone head at AverMedia Tech Support and he stated the A180 does need the analogue tuner as the card is only capable of receiving HDTV and not tuning it... :roll: ...this seems highly suspicious to me since the card appears to have a tuner, demod & decoder onboard.
When asked how it works he stated via the drivers across the PCI bus - but when looking at the drivers they look like Philips generic drivers to me.
But anyway - I would steer clear of it unless someone can tell us otherwise under MP (without an analogue card in the system that is).

DMAN