Are any of these TV cards supported? (1 Viewer)

[Geon106]

I'm looking to buy a new budget TV tuner card because my current Jetway PCI TV Station card isn't detected by Media Portal. Anywho, can anyone tell me which of the following work under MP and which ones they recommend?

Yes I am aware they're cheap, but i'm on a very tight budget.

One: http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/HAUPVC57

Two: http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/PINVE118

Three: http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/PINVE120 [i'm not sure if i'll be able to afford this one, altho it does look like a nice lil card]

http://www.pcwb.com/ec/extended-specs.jtp?item=Y993637 this ones in clearence, but its USB and has no remote, both suck for what i want tbh lol. good price though.

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.1

 

[FlipGer]

Hi,

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Supported_TVCards

ONE - TWO: No

THREE - Yes.

But you won't get happy with all of these choices. All these cards are analoge software encoding. An analoge hardware encoding card is always a better choice, especially for MP. For software encoding you will need a software MPEG encoder which a) stresses your CPU and b) costs some extra bucks.

See the list above and search for a cheap hardware encoding card. You will have to spent more money, but its worth the effort!

Flip.

 

[Geon106]

Hi,

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Supported_TVCards

ONE - TWO: No

THREE - Yes.

But you won't get happy with all of these choices. All these cards are analoge software encoding. An analoge hardware encoding card is always a better choice, especially for MP. For software encoding you will need a software MPEG encoder which a) stresses your CPU and b) costs some extra bucks.

See the list above and search for a cheap hardware encoding card. You will have to spent more money, but its worth the effort!

Flip.

Oops, sorry i accidently put the specs of that card not the main page, heres the proper link: http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/PINVE120

Anyways, to what your saying i doubt i'll be able to afford any more than £50 on a TV Tuner tbh, I've got a holiday to save for and i'm planning to move lol.

 

[FlipGer]

Hi,

I know it can be hard to spend much money. But it hurts more to spend money on a useless hardware. £30 for the chimney or £50 for a card that will work flawless for quite some time.

I have no idea about shops in the UK. But the above one seems to be quite expensive. The Hauppauge PVR 150 lies here in germany around 60€ => £40

Perhaps someone of the other members from the UK have some tipps?

Flip.

 

[Geon106]

i've tried looking at online shops like Techstore.co.uk and Komplett[.co.uk?] but can't find any hardware encoding cards =/ i'm not overaly sure where to look tbh.

If anyone knows of any places or has any links to online stores that sell budget hardware cards that are half good then lemme know

Thanks

 

[funkstar]

Geon,

Have a look at Scan.co.uk. They have DVB-T USB dongles from ~£22 and a PCI card for ~£32 (plus delivery).

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=288373
This card does work with MP as i have one.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Prod...ilterMaxPrice=&FilterCategories=277&OrderBy=3 (Full list)

Thought about eBay?

 

[Geon106]

i'd rather avoid ebay, i got put off when i brought a card reader which never arrived lol.

I didn't think of Scan, i'll give them a go. Thanks

 

[Geon106]

That card looks very similar to my cheap software encoding one, lol. but just a lot better.

I take it as its digital it picks up Freeview channels?

I think i might buy that one. Thank you so much

 

[Geon106]

How much is delivery from Scan, do you know?

It doesn't say =/

If its free then i'll be one happy chappy lol

 

[funkstar]

Technical explination:

Freeview is the branding for the UK Free-To-Air DTV line up.

The DTV (Digital Television) system in the UK uses DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast - Terrestrial) standard. These cards are usually a lot cheaper than proper hardware capture cards as they actually do very little work. As the video and audio are already in a digital format, all the card needs to do is tun to the correct frequency (an old fasioned analogue channel, called a Multiplex or Mux) and send the digital stream to the drivers. They then pass it onto the TV software (in this case MediaPortal) to do with it what they like.

Usually the entire Mux is sent from the card and the correct TV or radio station is seperated out of the TS (Transport Stream) by the player software. If you are only recording a channel and not playing it, it is possible to do this on very modest hardware. I've heard of someone using a P133 under Linux who was able to record DVB-T channels without issue using a stripped down OS and tools.

true hardware cards on the other hand take an analogue signal (either from a composite, svideo or tuner) and encode to MPEG-2 (or sometimes MPEG-4) using dedicated hardware on the card and send this to the host system. These cards are popular with people that are using satelite or cable STBs that can't be controlled directly through MediaPortal. It releaves a lot of load from the system, although with modern dual core processors that isn't so much of an issue.

hope this is useful to you