Suggestions for reliable PCIe DVB-S2 tuner (1 Viewer)

rlevis

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  • August 15, 2008
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    My Blackgold BGT3600 tuner stopped working late March and I can't find another PCIe DVB-S2 tuner for sale except on ebay. I tried to purchase a TBS6902 on ebay in March but it never arrived. I don't have any spare USB slots available for a USB tuner. Was this TBS card a good choice or are there better brands available?
     

    CyberSimian

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  • June 10, 2013
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    Was this TBS card a good choice
    I cannot comment on the TBS DVB-S2 tuner card, as I have never used satellite TV :eek:. But I do have an older TBS DVB-T2 quad tuner card -- the TBS6284 (now two generations out of date). It seems well made (but I am not an electronics expert), and has mostly proved reliable over the past 6 years. However, there remains a bug in the driver that occasionally causes Windows to abend with an IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL error :( (occurs perhaps once every 2-3 months; seems worse on 64-bit Windows compared to 32-bit Windows).

    Looking on Amazon (boo, hiss), there does not seem to be much else available. :(

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    404

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    My vote would be for a Dvbsky S952 card, had mine for a good few years and never had any problems whatsoever, solid when waking from sleep for scheduled recordings also (which was a huge headache with the previous bunch of cards I owned). I'd love to fit another but the usual retarded design rules apply to my MB (as soon as the GPU is fitted you lose the adjacent PCIe slot...really don't know why manufacturers bother to fit them)...I only use MP for live playback and recording of DVBS(2), PQ is important also because I use a 65" LG and to be honest I really can't fault the HD material. So for me it's a great value card (Amazon were selling them for around £50 not long ago) but as with all hardware/software combos your mileage may vary...
     

    CyberSimian

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    I'd love to fit another but the usual retarded design rules apply to my MB (as soon as the GPU is fitted you lose the adjacent PCIe slot.
    For a non-gaming HTPC, there are surely graphics cards that occupy only one slot?
    • My Nvidia 8600GT is only one slot wide (it has a very thin fan).
    • My Asus AMD HD6450 is only one slot wide (it has a thin heatsink and no fan).
    • My Nvidia GT610 does occupy two slots (it has no fan, but does have a large heatsink).
    All of the above are capable of 1920x1080 video at 50Hz (no support for 4K video, of course).

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    rlevis

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    Well, the TBS card I ordered months ago, and had no movement in the tracking system for months, suddenly arrived yesterday, and it seems to work well. Thanks for the suggestions though.
     

    404

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    My HTPC is pretty much silent (other than air movement), I wanted to keep it that way so opted for a no fan option (GT1030) but then that increases the size of the heatsink, please don't tell me there is a fanless option that would occupy only 1 slot because that would ruin my day :sick: as this is a pretty new purchase...

    Edit.. Just noticed noticed that your AMD HD6450 doesn't have a fan, would I get smooth playback with live tv (HD)? I've tried quite a few low end cards over the years which according to reviews would play HD fine but were pretty disappointing on my setup. Would be great if I could free up that slot tho'
     
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    CyberSimian

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    Just noticed noticed that your AMD HD6450 doesn't have a fan, would I get smooth playback with live tv (HD)? I've tried quite a few low end cards over the years which according to reviews would play HD fine but were pretty disappointing on my setup.
    This is a long-standing issue with graphics cards, because most graphics cards are optimised for game play, whereas an HTPC needs a graphics card optimised for video playback. The issue that causes most problems is when the video stream switches frequently between progressive and interlaced output (not something games writers ever worry about).

    Using the info display on my Sony TV, I have seen the video switch between progressive and interlaced within a single advertisement :eek: (typically some studio shots intercut with landscape shots, filmed with a different camera).

    Another problem is horizontal panning, or horizontally or vertically scrolling credits at the end of a programme. I have a clip from the drama "Remember Me" that was shot in progressive format with multi-channel sound. When I first played the recording, there was appalling jerkiness in a scene containing horizontal panning. By experimenting with the LAV settings I was eventually able to cure that. But I have another recording of an older programme that also has jerky horizontal panning, but which is not solved by the settings that fix "Remember Me". I have not found a solution for that. :(

    With my current setup (using the GT610), scrolling credits do still look jerky sometimes, but ordinary programmes don't have jerky panning (mostly), i.e. the jerkiness is at a sufficiently low level that I don't notice it on most video. 100% smooth playback would be wonderful, but I don't know how to obtain it. :(

    I am currently building a new HTPC, using an Intel Skylake processor. The intention is to use the integrated Intel graphics if possible (to reduce power consumption and heat production), but if that is not satisfactory for HD, I will use the HD6450. I have not yet tried the HD6450 with HD video, so I don't know whether it will suffer from the same quirks as the GT610 (acceptable), be better (hooray), or worse (boo). If the HD6450 is unsatisfactory too, I will revert to the GT610. My new HTPC will be completely fanless.

    Sadly, we HTPC users have no way of knowing in advance whether a particular graphics card will produce smooth video, and if it does not, that may simply be because we are not using the correct settings. :(

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    joecrow

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    Further to the post by @CyberSimian I just wanted to add my tuppence worth on GPUs. In my original HTPC I also used an HD6450, a good low cost card that did the job at the time, which for me in Germany was before HD TV. When I bought a new TV with 3D capability and upgraded my DVD player to Bluray I needed HDMI 1.4 capability which from memory was not possible with the HD 6450 so I upgraded with another more powerful AMD HD 5770 card which was fanless but as mentioned by others had a large heat sink that took up 2 slots. From memory, both cards performed well, just some occasional not so smooth horizontal panning usually on sports. A couple of years back Germany upgraded their OTA TV to full HD using DVBT2and HEVC which fortunately required no hardware changes in my HTPC (my TBS tuner was already DVBT2) but my GPU did not support hardware HEVC encoding which meant when playing TV my CPU usage went through the roof. I decided to upgrade the GPU again to the then new AMD RX 460 which supported HEVC encoding and also had sufficient power to effectively use Madvr. After some initial problems the RX 460 has worked superbly, smooth playback with full HD whether original or upscaled by Madvr. On the negative side the RX **0s are very power hungry and are not fanless though use are set up for zero fan speed at lower temperatures which for my HTPC use seems to be always. I have subsequently upgraded again to an RX 570 and swapped the 460 onto my desktop PC to get even more out of Madvr. I am not a fan of Nvidia but did try out a GT 1050ti for a while, it had similar performance to the RX 460 but I was never able to get 3D working reliably and I understand Nvidia no longer support it so I am happy I sold it.
    I do agree that GPUs do seem to be aimed at the gaming market but there are opportunities in an HTPC to utilise the power that may be available.
     

    Lehmden

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    Hi.
    I'm a bit astonished that no one mentioned the DigitalDevices Cine S2 as a reliable Tuner card. Imho it's the best card available today. Or was it because this is a dual tuner card? But afair the DVBSky also is a dual tuner card. I had one before the Cine S2 but did not remember the exact number... The DVBSky was good but the CIne S2 was better a bit. Nowadays I don't have any tuner cards build into my TV server, I'm using SAT>IP... The cine s2 still is here as a spare part if something went wrong with my SAT>IP router on a Saturday evening...

    Aside this I can proof that on a Windows PC the graphic cards are made for gaming, not for video playback. That was one of the many reasons why I changed over to ARM systems where the GPU most often are optimized for video playback and in general those systems are extremely cheap and tiny and completely silent... You get the power of a 500$ graphics card (for video playback, not for gaming of course) in a 50$ system, that is complete incl power supply and housing...
     

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