Terratec Cinergy 2400 DVB-T card (1 Viewer)

[Dansta]

Hi All.

I'm about to purchase the last 2 components for my HTPC using MP: a Terratec Cinergy 2400 dual DVB card (on the supported list obviously) and Windows XP.

I've read in the FAQ that XP does not support 2 DVB cards, but MCE RU2 does. Question is, is this DVB card classed as 1 card and therefore works fine in XP Pro on both tuners, or is it classed as 2 cards (and therefore does not work in XP Pro) because it is a dual tuner. This dictates whether I buy XP Pro (which is cheaper) or XP MCE 2005 RU2.

Also any thoughts about living with the Cinergy 2400 card with MP? Various forums seem to give it a thumbs up for MCE.

Cheers, Dansta

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

The most you will need is the DVB patch for XP (only rqd for TVE2).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896626

But may actually come as part of the Cinergy driver installation.

 

[Dansta]

Thanks for that.

 

[SoylentCola]

I have this card and for the most part it is fine. The only thing I would say is that the drivers are not too hot and Terratec seam to be a bit slow in updating them.

Otherwise it's a good card.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

SoylentCola or Dansta

Would appreciate some feedback\personal experience with this card, both with and without MP being used.

Little things like do you have any standby\hibernate problems using MP's powerscheduler.

Channel changinging times, with own software and MP.

And any other little things that may be important.

Trying to establish as much information about Dual DVB-T tuners as can get, Very hard to recommend something you have not got yourself.

And as i have already got 3 dual tuners, as far as the family goes, i am on the rope of HANGMAN.

 

[SoylentCola]

I have only used the card with Media portal, the software it came with was frankly not for me.

It changes channels relatively quickly about 2 seconds average, although it was worse until I sorted out some other system issues. I have not really played around with standby or hibernate yet, I just starting to think about the powerscheduler. It does occasionally glitch but I can't say if it's the card or me just overloading MP.

One thing I would say is that the remote that comes with it is awful, I used it for a day before shelling out for a Microsoft remote which has been grand.

Overall it does seem to be pretty solid, I would just like to see some updated drivers to see if the card can perform any better.I would recomend it, but with a few reservations, it is not a killer card but it was the only duel card I could get at the time and it was interesting to see how a PCI-e slot would work with it.

Not overly helpful I know but I don't have anything to compare it with.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Thanks for replying

As this is one of 2 PCI-e cards i know of in existance, really would be great if you could test powerscheduler sometime with it, both in Hibernate\Standby modes.

Just to make sure your system supports S3 properly, try using this little tool.

MCE standby tool (works fine with XP) found at

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hveijk/mst/indexe.htm

and thanks again

 

[J-B-N]

I have been using the 2400 card for about a year now mostly in conjunction with MP. From my experience it is more sensitive to the antenna/signal than my other cards.

I always let MP go to S3 with powerscheduler, and the only problem I have is with a Twinhan 3040-card. The 2400 and a FireDTV works great.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

J-B-N

Thanks for the feedback on the S3 capabilities, one to recommend for people with PCI-e

 

[grouzy]

I have this card also, using only with MP. I'm using powerscheduler all the time mostly with S4 and no problems.

My only problem, but not sure it's the card, is that some channels/radios are not found despite having them on my DTT TV (UKTV History doesn't work with TV Engine 0.2, and doesn't even appear in the list with TV Engine 0.3, BBC Radio 1 is never found too...)