Are TV Tuner cards improving? (1 Viewer)

Gixxer

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  • August 18, 2007
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    Hi, i need to buy a dual tv tuner DVB-T, i have been thinking of buying the HAUPPAUGE WINTV NOVA T500 PCI as i have read here in the forum that apart from S3 problem, it works quite good.

    My question is, this card has been around for some time now, are there new features in most modern cards which should make me change my decision?

    If so, which features, and from your experience with MP, which card?

    I know this has been asked before, but i mainly need to know if the T500 is old and i should be getting a most recent one.


    Thanks a lot !
     

    Marcusb

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    I my experience the newer cards seem to have better reception. Then again, who's to say that respected cards like the 500 haven't had hardware revisions that may also improve. I don't know much about the 500 so can't comment there.
     

    Gixxer

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    I my experience the newer cards seem to have better reception. Then again, who's to say that respected cards like the 500 haven't had hardware revisions that may also improve. I don't know much about the 500 so can't comment there.

    thats a good point. but is there any way of checking this?

    so i guess the point is, what features do modern tv tuners have that older models (t500) dont ??
     

    Marcusb

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    well the early TV tuners that were dual and internal use a function where they are essentially two USB tuners on a PCI USB card. this is pretty messy.
    Newer ones are actually two tuners (either PCI or PCIe) that communicate straight to the bus, not via USB adapters. This is much neater and the USB aproach can give issues with power saving and sleep/hibernate.

    My Dvico Dual worked like this, and it's annoying when the PC comes out of hibernate and windows gives a "USB device not recognied" error message about your internal TV tuner.
     

    Gixxer

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    well the early TV tuners that were dual and internal use a function where they are essentially two USB tuners on a PCI USB card. this is pretty messy.
    Newer ones are actually two tuners (either PCI or PCIe) that communicate straight to the bus, not via USB adapters. This is much neater and the USB aproach can give issues with power saving and sleep/hibernate.

    My Dvico Dual worked like this, and it's annoying when the PC comes out of hibernate and windows gives a "USB device not recognied" error message about your internal TV tuner.

    thanks for that info !! :)

    from what i know the T500 is one of those USB into PCI so i guess it can be classified into OLD !

    mm...maybe i need to start looking for another option, any recommendation of a dual DVB-T with last technology and if possible no S3 trouble?
     

    Gixxer

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    Try Terratec 2400i

    i have been doing some research after your recommendation, looks really good, but here i found something strange....

    http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/rev.php?id=448

    CONS

    No analogue video input; can’t record two programs simultaneously; PCIe only


    can you confirm this? i dont mind about the analogue.and i will need a new mobo with pcie but the record of two programs it is important.

    thanks
     

    petsa

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    This morning I recorded 4 channels at the same time. I had three SDTV channels on one mux (=used one tuner) and one HDTV channel from one mux(=used the other tuner).

    If yuo read the link you had above further down you'll see that the limitation in recordings is with the SW called PowerCinema. Works fine with MP :)

    I guess that's the best I can do to confirm this ;)

    /Peter
     

    Gixxer

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    This morning I recorded 4 channels at the same time. I had three SDTV channels on one mux (=used one tuner) and one HDTV channel from one mux(=used the other tuner).

    If yuo read the link you had above further down you'll see that the limitation in recordings is with the SW called PowerCinema. Works fine with MP :)

    I guess that's the best I can do to confirm this ;)

    /Peter



    my bad !! i am really sorry, you are completely right.

    one mux? 3 channels ? i need some research to do as i didnt know you can do that, i dont even knwo what a mux is:confused:
     

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