Recomended DVB-T dual tuner? (1 Viewer)

[Naranekk]

Well, as the title says, I would like to adquire a decent / good and no problematic DVB-T dual tuner with good integration with Mediaportal.

I don't mind if it's internal or USB. I don't need satellite, cable or CAM characteristics. Obviously HD content is welcome.

Any advice? If it's needed, I live in Europe.

 

[JimCatMP]

Now discontinued product, but you may still be able to find it - SD only, dual channel, never had a problem with it [despite cats, damp, no ventilation:-< in MePo [currently 1.12 on Win 7[.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/dual-tuner-dvb-t-digital-tv-usb-stick-a17hg

Cheers - J.

 

[mm1352000]

SD only

To avoid confusion: that limitation/association is specific to the UK where DVB-T is used for SD and DVB-T2 is used for HD. In other parts of the world (I think including Spain), DVB-T is also used for HD.

Any advice?

Most tuners should be fine. Any tuner that says it is compatible with WMC is very likely to work.
You may want to consider getting DVB-T2 tuners instead of DVB-T for "future-proofing".

 

[aspik]

Hi Naranekk,

Hauppauge has recently released a dual tuner for dvb-t/dvb-t2 and dvb-c: WinTV-dualHD. From my own experience Hauppauge tuners has been always working very good with MediaPortal.

 

[CyberSimian]

I would like to adquire a decent/good and not problematic DVB-T dual tuner

Your requirement for a not problematic dual tuner may be why there have been relatively few replies.

I use a TBS 6284 quad tuner card, which has proved problematic in my HTPC. Specifically, I cannot use sleep (I have to use hibernation). But I am reasonably sure that this is due to defective motherboard BIOS in my HTPC, but I cannot exclude the possibility that it is a problem with the design of the TBS tuner card. (I have two cards, and both exhibit the same problem, so not a sample variation.)

If you want to consider TBS, they make single, dual, and quad tuner cards for PCI-Express, and also single and dual tuner units for USB connection. Strangely, the TBS website does not promote their DVB-T/T2 tuner cards, and I could not find the product descriptions. But their forums start here:

http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/

The TBS 6280 (obsolete) and TBS 6281 are the dual-tuner cards. If you search the internet, you should be able to find a retailer in Spain who stocks these cards.

Another maker of DVB-T/T2 tuner cards is BlackGold, but their reputation is... err... problematic. Search the internet for reviews and experiences of BlackGold tuner cards.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[aspik]

Your requirement for a not problematic dual tuner may be why there have been relatively few replies.

I've used the Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T for over 6 years on the daily basis and NEVER had a problem with it. No sleep, hibernation or initialize problems at all It is still working working very good, but I have replaced it on my HTPC with something new: HVR-1975 with which I also doesn't have any problems

 

[CyberSimian]

I've used the Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T for over 6 years on the daily basis and NEVER had a problem with it. No sleep, hibernation or initialize problems at all

The first tuner card that I purchased (for use with WMC) was a Hauppauge Nova TD-500 dual-tuner PCI card. Actually, I purchased three cards, because I wanted six DVB-T tuners in my HTPC. The problem with this arrangement was that one card by itself worked fine, but two or more did not; they failed to be recognised on wake from sleep.

In this case (PCI, and not PCI Express), the general view was that the problem was caused by a timing issue during wake from sleep (this was WMC, not MP). I eventually found a single post from a Hauppauge Support representative on a Hauppauge forum stating that more than one Nova TD-500 PCI card in a system was not a supported configuration, and that Hauppauge were never going to fix it.

So I junked those Hauppauge cards, and purchased three Pinnacle 2000i dual-tuner PCI cards, which worked perfectly. But when DVB-T2 (HD) arrived at my location, I junked the Pinnacle cards and purchased two TBS quad-tuner cards, which it turned out also have wake-from-sleep problems.

Actually "junked" is not quite correct; I still have all of those Hauppauge and Pinnacle tuner cards. Anyone interested in buying them?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK