Sure fire DVB-T Dual Tuner (feedup with what I have) (1 Viewer)

[Spoonfed]

I have just finished building a new HTPC (old Athlon 2400 was getting a bit long in the tooth).
Note the system is Vista 32 ultimate, MB has 3 PCI-E and 3 PCI slots

Anyways DVB-T cards I already had were.
Avermedia 777
Twinhan 878 chip'd card (one of the old old originals)
DvicoHDTV DVB-T
Dvico Dual 4

I want at least 3 fast, reliable tuners, so far the only decent one of the above is the Aver. It is fast and reliable.
The Twinhan card is quite good also, quick, use to be reliable but in MP the vista drivers don't seem too good, often get blank screen on attempted tune. (works flawless in VMC however)
The Dvico cards I have found to be pathetic over the years of their use, slow, buggy and drivers seem to cause crashes etc etc.

Basicly 3 Aver 777's would do the job i guess, don't seem to be availble anymore.

Happy for any recommendations.

Thanks

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Was going to suggest Terratec Cinergy 2400i, but a comment i read over at xpmediacentre.com.au about it not behaving well with his avermedia, like the Aver stopped the Terratec from tuning correctly, whether this may have been a signal problem who knows, as he did test the terratec on its own and it worked fine.

Mind you he does not say if he had done the MCE registry hack, to get it to accept more than 2 tuners.

 

[Spoonfed]

Thanks for the reply,

Will have one more crack at the cards i've got (one does get fed up trying so many 'options' after a while ), that does sound a good card, don't think its available locally though.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Everyone has been imported, but compared to the cost of some of your Aussie outlets, its cheaply available in the uk, and the standard shippings costs seem to be very reasonable.

Now just seen this beauty Blackgold 6 in 1, now if i can get some info on the drivers for it, would be great.

 

[bigj]

I have:
compro 300T
compro U3 (usb stick tuner)
Leadtek/Winfast 1000T

My experience is
- you MUST install the multituner fix if using multi tuners simultaneously else channel channing goes pear shaped (tuners locked to a single mux?)
- cards have big variances w.r.t. signal strength (too weak OR too strong/analog band interference) - I have an external signal distributer with attenuation for each device.
- the U3 is reasonably quick channel change and stable but requires a good signal.
- the 300T seems to work with a weaker signal but is a bit clunky on channel change.
- the leadtek is a good all rounder.

Of course, YMMV!

Another plus point for the leadtek is that it comes with the winfast software. As long as you have one leadtek card installed it does allow you to run with ANY DVB-T card using BDA drivers. I use this to identify BDA card/driver versus MP specific bugs. (Can even open 3 instances of winfast running on each card/driver simultaneously.)

 

[Spoonfed]

Thought I'd provide an update.

Borrowed an unused Compro 300T and managed to get that working ok with the Aver (slow channel change in comparison, i've yet use a card as quick as the Aver).
Persisted further and managed to get the Dvico Dual 4 working!!! Perhaps it was the change of PCI slot as the drivers are identical.

So after days of messing round finally seems have come around nicely (i'll jinx it now). Have setup the 2 Dvico tuners (1 card) and the compro just for recording/capture, and the Aver for viewing only which seems to work ok.

Im using the 'stable' 2.3.0 release, not game now to update any SVN's.

bigj
Not sure what the multituner fix is but seemed ok while captures were occuring will have to look into this.
I can get the Leadtek cards local and quite cheap, so might go this option if have too (have tried suspened yet, guessing with the Dual 4 and basicly PCI onboad USB devices might cause problems)
Off topic but what happened to "Search" in the music section

Otherwise getting quite happy i've persisted, coming together nicely (glad i don't have to fall back to 'restrictive VMC now).