Which dual tuner DVB-T? (3 Viewers)

[doveman]

I've just found out that there's no 64-bit BDA drivers for my brother's Nebula DigiTV PCI card (after spending ages setting up Win7 x64!). I might just install Win7 x32 instead, but am considering just buying him a new card/stick.

Can anyone tell me if any of these are good under Win7 x64?

PEAK DVB-T DIGITAL TV USB STICK 203244AGPK: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Peak DVB-T Digital Dual Tuner TV PCI Card: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Peak PCI DVB-T TV Tuner, Dual Channel, Real Time and Scheduling Recording: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

or suggest any other good cards/sticks under £30?

 

[porky996t]

Hi Doveman,

I use the Peak Dual Tuner PCI Card and it has been faultless. There are a few other forum users who have this too. If you search for it, you should get quite a bit coming up.

You can also install x64 drivers as I had it working on Win7 x64 a few weeks back before I reverted back to Win7 x86. I reverted back due to stability problem with MP. There were no issues with the card.


HTH,



M.

 

[doveman]

Hi Doveman,

I use the Peak Dual Tuner PCI Card and it has been faultless. There are a few other forum users who have this too. If you search for it, you should get quite a bit coming up.

You can also install x64 drivers as I had it working on Win7 x64 a few weeks back before I reverted back to Win7 x86. I reverted back due to stability problem with MP. There were no issues with the card.

Thanks. It sounds OK, but I can't seem to find a website for Peak, which is rather worrying (besides the question of where do I get drivers from).

There seems to be at least two different models as well on Amazon, so if you could let me know the model number of the card you had success with, that would help me make sure I get the same one. Thanks.

Peak DVB-T Digital Dual Tuner TV PCI Card: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Peak PCI DVB-T TV Tuner, Dual Channel, Real Time and Scheduling Recording: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Peak PCI DVB-T TV Tuner, Dual Channel, Real Time and Scheduling Recording: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Comes with driver\software cd, actually did not need as windows 7x64 installed them for me if I remember correctly.

 

[porky996t]

Hi Doveman,


There is a CD with the card that contains the drivers. I have lost mine, but I did find this that fitted the bill. Short thread >>here<<

The second link you posted is what mine looks like.

HTH,



M.

 

[doveman]

Thanks. I'm a bit reluctant to buy a card that no longer seems to be supported though, as I worry that MS might do something that causes problems and requires new drivers. It is cheap though.

I'll probably just install x32 Windows and use the DigiTV card for now and if my brother decides he wants more tuners I'll see if there's something better supported available for around the same price then. He's unlikely to upgrade the RAM beyond the current 4GB and doesn't game, so if there's some stability issues with MP and x64 he'll be better off with x32 anyway.

 

[porky996t]

I can understand your point about the Peak Hardware card.

Have you looked at TBS cards? - they are great value and are actively supported. They have their own support forum, and one of their developers is a member on here too.

Just a point to note on the RAM. I am running Win7 x86 (32 bit) and have 10Gb RAM installed. Windows uses 4Gb but the remaining 6Gb is used as a RAMDisk for the live TV timeshift file. It gives a faster peformance and doesn't 'wear out'.


M

 

[doveman]

I can understand your point about the Peak Hardware card.

Have you looked at TBS cards? - they are great value and are actively supported. They have their own support forum, and one of their developers is a member on here too.

Just a point to note on the RAM. I am running Win7 x86 (32 bit) and have 10Gb RAM installed. Windows uses 4Gb but the remaining 6Gb is used as a RAMDisk for the live TV timeshift file. It gives a faster peformance and doesn't 'wear out'.


M

Thanks for the suggestion but the only shops that list the DVB-T card show it as discontinued. There's a few of the dual T2 cards on e-bay but they're around £100, so not really in my/my brother's budget I'm afraid.

Good point on the RAM. I forgot that I can use above 4GB for a RAMdisk with x86, so my brother could still benefit if he wanted to add some more RAM at some point. I'm using a RAMdisk at the moment with Win7 x64 and did use a program with XP that allowed me to use the space above 3.5GB. Some of the better free RAMdisks aren't available (for free) in x64 versions, but the one I'm using (DataRAM) is good enough for me (just doesn't support pagefile on RAMdisk, but that's no big deal for me).

 

[doveman]

Just looking for some new recommendations. I was going to get the Peak USB Dual tuner at one point but it doesn't seem to be available anymore.

I'm planning to put my current Hauppauge Nova-T 500 in my brother's PC, which only has one PCI slot (I had two single tuner cards in there, one Nebula and one Hauppauge but then his motherboard died and I couldn't find a replacement with two PCI slots, besides which it's problematic using two cards as I'd need an amplified splitter to power two leads and the Nebula only has 32-bit drivers available so I can't install Win7 x64) and thought it would be good to get myself a USB dual tuner instead as my motherboard's PCI slot is right next to the graphics card and so the TV card currently somewhat blocks the fans on my graphics card (Accelero Xtreme Plus II http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/376/accelero-xtreme-plus-ii.html?c=2182 )

 

[doveman]

I'm using the Nova-TD USB Stick (model 52009) in Windows 7 SP1 with MP 1.2.0b and it's working flawlessly with one Antenna going into the dual tuner ports. I don't use Standby/Hibernation so I can't comment on that. Initially there was a long channel change delay, but that was resolved by setting the Network Provider for the tuners to "DVB-T" in the TV Service configuration.

Is this likely to help my Nova-T 500? I'm still thinking of putting this in my brother's PC and getting myself a USB dual-tuner but it's quite slow tuning and it could be a bit irritating/confusing for my brother when nothing happens for 5+ seconds when he chooses a channel from the EPG. Changing channel isn't so much of an issue. It's probably a bit quicker but more importantly there's obvious visual clues that it's doing something.

I've seen the KWorld DVB-T PC160-2T (AF9015 + AF9013) for £30 and could get that for myself (or my brother) but I'd rather get a USB stick myself for the reason I mentioned previously. K-World USB sticks I can get are the UB499-2T or 399U but it doesn't mention what chipset they use on the website. I don't need to get a K-World though. The only thing I'm slightly nervous about with USB sticks is that they might not work as well with weak signals as PCI cards as noted here http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36625 as I've had some problems with signal strength in the past, although it seems to be a lot better now (I'm still using a powered splitter/amp though, so I need to check what it's like without that).

EDIT: Just seen this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dual-Freeview-Tuner-Receiver-Recorder/dp/B001CW68BU for £15 which the reviews say shows as a AF9015BDA device. I've seen a B-Grade K-World UB499-2T for £18 too if that would be better.