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TV Tuner Card

D

dylskee

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 30, 2006
Messages
123
Need some help here......
I want to add a TV tuner card to my setup. I would like to watch live tv while I'm in my PC Cave. I've got dual 22" wide screen monitors so I would like to be surfing on one and watch some tv on the other. I've been doing some research this morning on the cards and This One seems to be a good buy. I have zero experience with this stuff so any input would be appreciated. I need the interface to either be PCI Express X1 or PCI.

Now, will I need to run a different OS like Windows Media Center to take full advantage of something like this? Right now I'm dual booting XP Pro and Windows 7. I'd like to keep my XP partition and If I had to I could reinstall over the W7 partition. I remember reading something about Media Portal, is this software I can install on XP or is something that runs on Media Center OS? Thanks for any insight.
 
dylskee said:
Added my setup to my sig......
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Personally Windows 7 from my understanding should support the tuner. Normally the tuners come with some sort of program to be able to watch tv on them. As I have Vista Ultimate and Vista Media Center as a result I dont use the software that came with my tuner.

I think thats a bit expensive for a just a single tuner. I got a ATI 650 PCI-E combo tuner for like 79 bucks (plus 30 dollar mail in rebate) at Fryes. For my purposes I wanted to be able to record two shows at one time, or watch a show while recording another.

I eventually ended up with the Hauppauge 2250 which I love (I really like the remote better). If you only need a single tuner however I highly recomend the ATI Wonder 650 tuner (you can find cheaper just by searching the web, newegg is just for the spec's)

I dont know if you would need to install the program twice on the computer (once in each boot partition) or how it would interact between them (I only have one OS and never have done a dual boot system) so I will leave that for others with more experience and knowledge to discuss
 
EndersShadow said:
Personally Windows 7 from my understanding should support the tuner. Normally the tuners come with some sort of program to be able to watch tv on them. As I have Vista Ultimate and Vista Media Center as a result I dont use the software that came with my tuner.

I think thats a bit expensive for a just a single tuner. I got a ATI 650 PCI-E combo tuner for like 79 bucks (plus 30 dollar mail in rebate) at Fryes. For my purposes I wanted to be able to record two shows at one time, or watch a show while recording another.

I eventually ended up with the Hauppauge 2250 which I love (I really like the remote better). If you only need a single tuner however I highly recomend the ATI Wonder 650 tuner (you can find cheaper just by searching the web, newegg is just for the spec's)

I dont know if you would need to install the program twice on the computer (once in each boot partition) or how it would interact between them (I only have one OS and never have done a dual boot system) so I will leave that for others with more experience and knowledge to discuss
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Thanks for the reply EndersShadow! Honestly I'm not a big fan of ATI (Crappy Catalyst software!) but that Hauppauge looks pretty good. To tell you the truth I didn't even think about recording but now that you mention it that sounds like something I would be interested in. I have a DVR on my TV upstairs and I'm always pausing and recording my shows so this is something that interests me now. As far as the cable companies only broadcasting in digital starting in June I believe, would this card be able to pick up encrypted digital channels?
 
dylskee said:
Thanks for the reply EndersShadow! Honestly I'm not a big fan of ATI (Crappy Catalyst software!) but that Hauppauge looks pretty good. To tell you the truth I didn't even think about recording but now that you mention it that sounds like something I would be interested in. I have a DVR on my TV upstairs and I'm always pausing and recording my shows so this is something that interests me now. As far as the cable companies only broadcasting in digital starting in June I believe, would this card be able to pick up encrypted digital channels?
Click to expand...

That I am not sure of, I am only recording OTA DTV currently (getting either Uverse or cable in the next month or two so I will report that when it happens)
 
dylskee said:
As far as the cable companies only broadcasting in digital starting in June I believe, would this card be able to pick up encrypted digital channels?
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that switchover is only for OTA signals, whether or not cable switches to digital only is entirely up to your cable company. and no, as far as i know TV tuners cant pickup encrypted digital cable channels, you would need a cable box and hook it up via video in. cablecard can do it, but thats not available to DIY systems.

i believe many cable companies in the states supply a basic digital cable lineup unencrypted(i cant be sure though, im in canada and cable companies here provide nothing unencrypted:()
 
biztyke said:
that switchover is only for OTA signals, whether or not cable switches to digital only is entirely up to your cable company. and no, as far as i know TV tuners cant pickup encrypted digital cable channels, you would need a cable box and hook it up via video in. cablecard can do it, but thats not available to DIY systems.

i believe many cable companies in the states supply a basic digital cable lineup unencrypted(i cant be sure though, im in canada and cable companies here provide nothing unencrypted:()
Click to expand...

Yeah you're right, after doing some searching I can still get quite a few channels unencrypted so I went ahead and took EndersShadow's advice and ordered the Hauppauge 2250. Thanks again guys for your help. :)
 
ND40oz said:
Could have saved some money going the ATI 650 route: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...+650&lp=15&type=product&cp=1&id=1186007074476

Works in VMCE with the TV powerpack, pulls clearQAM and analog at the same time, so you have your digital cable and analog cable on the same card for $50...
Click to expand...

Where were you yesterday!? :p

Wow, I was actually at BB yesterday and I didn't see that card. Damn, for $50.00 that's a steal. I'm going to try a different BB today and see if I can find it. It's not too late to cancel my online order.
 
dylskee said:
Where were you yesterday!? :p

Wow, I was actually at BB yesterday and I didn't see that card. Damn, for $50.00 that's a steal. I'm going to try a different BB today and see if I can find it. It's not too late to cancel my online order.
Click to expand...

You prob wont find it in stores, I was at my local BB a couple days back and they didnt have it. The only thing to note you will only record with one analog and one digital tuner. I dont know how important that is to you, but in my case I want the option of recording both shows in HD.
 
EndersShadow said:
You prob wont find it in stores, I was at my local BB a couple days back and they didnt have it. The only thing to note you will only record with one analog and one digital tuner. I dont know how important that is to you, but in my case I want the option of recording both shows in HD.
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Yeah, it says it's not available at my local store but I'm going right by there today so I'll pull in and take a look at what they have.

I'm not too concearned about recording in HD, more or less just watching tv but the idea of being able to record some shows I like. I'll see whats available at BB and if I don't find anything I'll order the 650 from BB. I already cancelled my previous order so I won't end up with two cards! :D
 
Well, I ended up ordering the ATI HD 650. I checked at my local BB and they didn't have much at all, and after checking online $50.00 for that card is a great buy. Thanks again for the input, much appreciated.
 
dylskee said:
Well, I ended up ordering the ATI HD 650. I checked at my local BB and they didn't have much at all, and after checking online $50.00 for that card is a great buy. Thanks again for the input, much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Awesome. I know its a great card, I am planning on trying the hack to allow vista to use more than two tuners shortly so I can use all three as I still want to use that one :D.
 
dylskee said:
Yeah you're right, after doing some searching I can still get quite a few channels unencrypted
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Where did you go to find this info? I am getting cable and need a listing of what channels are encripted and unencripted, etc. Thanks in advance!
 
EndersShadow said:
Where did you go to find this info? I am getting cable and need a listing of what channels are encripted and unencripted, etc. Thanks in advance!
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Think he meant letting MCE do it's search, that's they only way I could tell, couldn't find any comcast information on it. Just let it do it's channel search and you'll end up with the unencrypted ones.
 
ND40oz said:
Think he meant letting MCE do it's search, that's they only way I could tell, couldn't find any comcast information on it. Just let it do it's channel search and you'll end up with the unencrypted ones.
Click to expand...

I was hoping that wasnt the case :(. I need to find this out ahead of time (if possible) as I am debating between Comcast and Uverse. Based on if I can get more channels on my Tv tuner with one or the other will decide which I go with. I will just have to smash google up tonight looking for the info.
 
EndersShadow said:
Where did you go to find this info? I am getting cable and need a listing of what channels are encripted and unencripted, etc. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I forget where I found the info but after searching google for a while I found someone talking about all the unencrypted channels he found with Charter Communications. I'll try to find where I got the info from and post back, but it sounds like you're getting Comcast, right?

EDIT: It may have been AVS forum but not too sure, good place to look around though. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/
And after a little more reading it looks like it various from city to city and it's just a matter of luck of the amount of unencrypted channels.
 
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SC385 said:
Put your zip code in here and you can find out which channels are available on clearqam. It updated fairly regularly also as I had a few channels added just last week.
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels
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Nice, thanks for the link.

Well got my card to day and it's all up and running, my only problem is I'm not getting any HD channels. I'm getting about 80 channels or so but nothing above channel 99. I assume the same principle applies when not using a cable box right? How do people get channels like 105-1 and so on? Another question, should I install the AMD Live Entertainment Suite that came with my ATI HD 650?
 
If you are running windows media center then you need to go to settings --> TV --> Guide --> Edit Channels. There you will see the qam stations that weren't added because the channels don't have info in the guide. You can select the channels and also can edit the listings so that it shows the correct channel name and guide listings.
 
SC385 said:
If you are running windows media center then you need to go to settings --> TV --> Guide --> Edit Channels. There you will see the qam stations that weren't added because the channels don't have info in the guide. You can select the channels and also can edit the listings so that it shows the correct channel name and guide listings.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply SC385! I'm still running XP Pro at the moment but I'm considering installing Media Center this weekend. Is there anyway to do this in XP? Will I gain any advantages if I run Media Center?
 
I think if you run xp then your only choice would be sagetv. I don't think you can get qam with media portal and I know you can't with xp media center.
 
dylskee said:
Can I run XP Media Center? Not a fan of Vista and I already have a copy of XP Media Center.
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No, it doesn't support QAM. It's VMCE or find another program that supports QAM. I'm pretty sure ATI's program only supports clearQAM in Vista.
 
SC385 said:
I think if you run xp then your only choice would be sagetv. I don't think you can get qam with media portal and I know you can't with xp media center.
Click to expand...

But I'm already getting a lot of channels without 3rd party software. Are you saying I'll get more if I use Vista media Center?
 
ND40oz said:
No, it doesn't support QAM. It's VMCE or find another program that supports QAM. I'm pretty sure ATI's program only supports clearQAM in Vista.
Click to expand...

I apologize for the ignorance and the million questions but this is very new to me. What is the difference between QAM and ClearQAM?
 
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