fast channel switching dual tuner dvb-t card recommendation (1 Viewer)

[villosil]

Hi all,

I'm new in this forum.

I'm in the process of a new HTPC. My main use of the HTPC is gonna be TV watching-recording, so I'm looking for a good DVB-T card with two tunners for recording and viewing at the same time. I dont' mind if the card is PCI or PCI-e, but thinking about speedness, I could think that a PCI-e card should go better with channel switching, or maybe not, just guessing. Also I would prefer not to buy a card with analogic tv tuner, since here in Spain in less than one year analogic tv will dissapear, and I consider a waste to spend money on this, but I'm open to everything as long as it is fast when changing channels.

Some weeks ago I bought a Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro PCI and I tried it with MP RC4. The channel switching was pretty slow, 7-8 seconds or even more. I don't know if this is normal, or it was card's or MP fault.

I would like to know your generally experiences with your cards about this issue, even if they have single dvb-t tuner cards. Also I've read in some places bad experiences with mediaportal about slow switching, saying that a same card with a different program worked fine (mostly with the software that came with the card), and with mediaportal didn't. Does this happened to you? And even someone claimed that the Server-Client structure of TV-Server makes channel switching slow. Is it that true?

Well, just waiting for your opinions. Thank you in advance

 

[oliber]

I picked up a WinTV Nova-TD USB stick recently and am quite impressed.

While timeshifting/viewing it uses about 20-26% CPU on my Core2 E6400 (2.13ghz) with 2gb of RAM and a GF 7950GT

While recording, the TV server uses 3-5%, and channel switching is around 2-3 seconds, which seams reasonable to me.

I think Hauppage do a PCI-e varient, but i didn't look too hard (my HTPC is an older shuttle, so USB was the only real option.


The remote that came with it; works but not as i would expect (i think XMBC might be getting involved somewhere..)

Hope this helps

 

[moab]

From what I have read the channel switching is most dependent on the timeshifting disk i/o.
You might want to consider setting up a RAM drive for the timeshifting files.
There are some tweaks in the forum to set the path to the RAM drive.
Try searching RAM drive timeshifting.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Channel change times sub 2 seconds with Hauppauge T500, sure you have not got a signal problem that may be slowing down the pinnacle card, that does seem extensive for any card, any pixelating\stopped frames happening, might be worthwhile trying another pci slot if available.

 

[moab]

Channel change times sub 2 seconds with Hauppauge T500, sure you have not got a signal problem that may be slowing down the pinnacle card, that does seem extensive for any card, any pixelating\stopped frames happening, might be worthwhile trying another pci slot if available.

Just to add that the signal strength and quality can be found in the channel info window under tuning i think. I just press the (i) button on my MCE remote when watching a particular TV channel and you will see what i mean.
If it is poor then you can get a singal booster/amplifier which will help.

 

[tourettes]

From what I have read the channel switching is most dependent on the timeshifting disk i/o.
You might want to consider setting up a RAM drive for the timeshifting files.
There are some tweaks in the forum to set the path to the RAM drive.
Try searching RAM drive timeshifting.

Actually even the slowest HD you can find is fast enough and the channel change times aren't going to improve by using a RAM disk.