What dvb-t/t2 dual or quad tuners work with media portal (in the UK)? (1 Viewer)

Nikki Locke

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I have an existing media centre pc, which has a black gold TV tuner in it.

I am getting twitchy about Windows media centre not being supported any more, so I am looking for alternative software. Media portal seems to be the most popular, but, as far as I can tell from the wiki, black gold thunders do not work with it for some reason.

So I need to buy another tuner. But most of the tuners mentioned in the wiki do not seem to be for sale here in the UK. Indeed searching Google shopping for a selection of the cards specifically mentioned in the wiki yielded no results, which makes me think the wiki is very out of date.

Can anyone tell me a supported tuner I can buy at a reasonable price? Ideally at least dual tuners, and dvb-t and Dvb-t2 support, so I can get the HD channels.
 

CyberSimian

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    I have an existing media centre pc, which has a black gold TV tuner in it.
    If your Black Gold tuner works with WMC, there is a good chance that it will work with MP. So, before spending any money, try MP to see if the tuner does in fact work.

    If you want to add DVB-T2 capabilities, TBS make dual-tuner and quad-tuner PCI-Express cards, but they are not cheap. I have one of their older TBS 6284 quad-tuner cards. Others may be able to recommend alternatives that are less expensive than the TBS models.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    Nikki Locke

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    So I should ignore the wiki, which explicitly says black gold tuners aren't supported?
     

    CyberSimian

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    So I should ignore the wiki, which explicitly says black gold tuners aren't supported?
    Probably, although it may depend on which particular tuner model you have. Unfortunately, the Wiki cannot be relied upon to be 100% accurate. :( So the simplest solution is to install MP, and see if the tuner works.

    Note: there is always the problem of the co-existence of two or more media-center programs that fight each other for access to the tuners. If WMC is accessing a tuner, MP won't be able to, and vice versa. If you wanted to run WMC and MP concurrently before deciding which to use, you should reconfigure WMC to use only tuner A, and then setup MP to use only tuner B. For a quick test, simply stop the WMC service (but this does not persist -- I think that it restarts after a period of time, around 15 minutes or so).

    Caution: I think that reconfiguring WMC will result in the loss of your recording schedule. :(

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    tonewheelkev

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    I've just bought (2nd hand) a TBS 6281-SE DVB T/T2 card...which is working well with my 8th Gen i5 system.
    Had some previous experience with a TBS DVB S/S2 card....so very much like TBS!
    Cheapest 'new' price is around £82 (CCL Computers)....2nd hand, perhaps 1/2 of that....:)
     

    Owlsroost

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    CyberSimian

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    I started the program, and looked at the TV Guide - no program data for anything (but the channel logos show fine).
    The following recent thread should tell you how to set up the EPG to use the broadcast EPG:
    UK - BBC2 EPG suddenly has several programs daily with 'No information'

    I started to watch TV. There was a few seconds delay between choosing a channel, and anything happening. Eventually, the sound starts, but the screen is black. As it happens, I use ultra vnc to control the media centre from my tablet. The picture appears on the tablet a bit, so I guess there is something wrong with direct x?
    This is outside my area of knowledge. Hopefully one of the MP experts will contribute.

    I have a large collection of pictures, stored on drive e also. Where can I tell media portal where these pictures are, so I can view them?
    There should be a shortcut called "MediaPortal Configuration" on the Windows Desktop. Select "Pictures" in the left side menu and you can define the folders where your pictures reside.

    I have a large number of TV programs recorded by media centre. How can I view these using media portal?
    Use "MediaPortal Configuration", but this time select "Videos" in the left side menu, and define the folders that contain the recordings made using WMC. MP can play DVR-MS and WTV files, but you won't see the metadata that is contained within those files; in particular you won't see the programme description, as MP does not know how to extract that information from those files. MP makes recordings in the form of TS files.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    Owlsroost

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    I started to watch TV. There was a few seconds delay between choosing a channel, and anything happening. Eventually, the sound starts, but the screen is black. As it happens, I use ultra vnc to control the media centre from my tablet. The picture appears on the tablet a bit, so I guess there is something wrong with direct x?

    ...Then don't use VNC to control MP - VNC has to snoop/copy/compress the screen content (to send it to the remote device) which can interfere with the normal video rendering operation.

    If you want to use a phone or tablet to control MP, try something like Unified Remote - Unified Remote – Remote Control App for your Computer - this has an MP specific 'remote' option - Media Portal Remote – Unified Remote in the paid-for version, but you can use the keyboard and mouse emulation in the free version to try it with MP.
     

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