Help me find a TV tuner solution?

D

Danja

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Messages
195
Hello,

I'm looking for a TV tuner solution which can read both HD and SD signals from a Comcast digital cable box, and also a satellite signal from a DirecTV box. I would prefer the tuner to be

a: integrated into the PC
b: a single tuner card

but can also consider getting two tuners if necessary. Mostly, I'm concerned for its ability to do the following:

Display a TV guide such as the one coming from Comcast
Be able to display & record shows from both the cable feed and the DirecTV feed
Actually work as intended (seems to be a problem from a lot of the reviews I'm reading).

Could anyone give me a suggestion? I was looking at the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250; would that suit my needs? A google search shows some problems getting it set up with an HD signal, but the problem seems to be a year old. Has anyone got an HD TV tuner working? Also, is it worth it to wait for the Colossus PVR mentioned in another post on here?

Thanks!

Edit: The comcast box has only HDMI, ethernet, and 1394 outputs. Does that mean the colossus is my only option?
 
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TV tuner cards are supposed to replace set top boxes. In order to work with a set top box, a TV tuner card must have an IR blaster, which is a cable that you tape over the IR receiver of the box, which then transmits channel change commands, so that your computer can control the set top box. TV tuner cards have F-connector inputs so that you can simply plug the cable from your wall into your PC. However, if you add a set top box into the mix, you cannot receive the HD signal sent from the set top box on your PC. So even if you go with an IR blaster, you cannot get the premium channels in HD. If your cable box does not even have coaxial output, then you can't use a TV tuner card at all. What you would need would be some sort of capture card. I've seen capture cards that accept HDMI in, but I know nothing about them. I'm pretty sure they are for like recording from a camcorder or something, not for watching live TV. I don't think they integrate well with TV watching software, like Windows Media Center. What you could do is get a TV tuner card that has cablecard support, and get rid of your comcast cablebox completely. Otherwise, I would have recommended the Hauppauge HD-PVR, but that only has S-video and composite inputs, no HDMI/ethernet/firewire. The new Colossus has an HDMI in, but it says it only accepts unencrypted signals, so I don't know what that means in terms of working with the cable box. Really, the best solution for comcast cable would be to get a TV tuner card that supports cablecards, so that would be the Ceton InfiniTV, or wait for the HDHomeRun PRIME to be released (or buy a used ATI Wonder DCT). That said, cablecard has nothing to do with DirecTV, so you wouldn't be able to use one of those with your DirecTV. The aformentioned HD-PVR works with DirecTV HD content. So you may be looking at getting 2 different tuners/capture cards.

Software, such as Windows Media Center, has their own guide, and can download epg data.
 
Would an Athlol 64 X2 5600+ 2.9 gHz Brisbane be enough horsepower for smooth blue ray/ HD TV tuner playback?
 
with a DXVA video card, yes. Even an atom can do bd playback as long as its got videocard acceleration.
 
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