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TV Tuner with IR blaster !?!?

M

MrPatate

Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
1,021
Hi,

A friend of mine wants a tv tuner, she has digital cable with a set top box.
I know she can simply use the outputs of the set top box to transmit the signal and use the set top box remote to change channel, but with this solution she cannot record shows and has two remotes to handle.

I know there are some tuner with an IR Blaster to control the cable box and have full functionality of the TV tuner. But the only one I find is the Hauppauge PVR-150, do you guys know some others? Of course it need to decode/encode the signal all by itself(no CPU usage), which I'm not sure the PVR-150 is doing...

Thanks
 
Thank you!

Does those tv tuner will support the addition of the IR Blaster automaticaly or they are gonna be a pain to setup?(the first time I'll do it, so I'm not worried, but if she formats later and I'm not around, shes not that great with computers...)

Will this remote work with any card or you suggested these two because they are the few that can? I'm surprised by the low cost of the cards, are they as good as those in the 150$ range?
 
Dude, the average price of a solid, good/awesome tuner is $50-80 depending on the feature set/bundled crap. Spending more then that is pretty much stupid and wasteful unless it's a dual tuner card.

Also, IR blasters aren't tied to the tuner card and the only remotes that get bundled with tuners are absolute garbage and limited to certain crappy software bundled with the tuner. The IR blaster is dependent on the software used, not the tuner card.
 
CrimandEvil said:
The IR blaster is dependent on the software used, not the tuner card.
Click to expand...
Ok, but will it be able to control the cable box automatically if a show is set to be recorded. If the IR blaster only works with the remote, its pretty useless...
 
I do not know about the above mentioned tuners, but I have this :
Hauppauge 1800

with vista it is plug and play (just do not use the software that comes with the card). It is a dualk hhybrid tuner, if that matters to you. I like having the ability to listento fm/am radio with this through the vmc interface.

I believe all the IR blasters will change the channel to the correct one when a show is to be recorded, but I can say the one with the 1800 definitely does with vmc
 
MrPatate said:
Ok, but will it be able to control the cable box automatically if a show is set to be recorded. If the IR blaster only works with the remote, its pretty useless...
Click to expand...

Dude. Thats the whole point of an IR Blaster. The tuner isn't what controls it, your software is what tells the Blaster to change channels.

I already said this. The tuner card has nothing to do with how the IR blaster works; it's your PVR software that does.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Dude. Thats the whole point of an IR Blaster. The tuner isn't what controls it, your software is what tells the Blaster to change channels.

I already said this. The tuner card has nothing to do with how the IR blaster works; it's your PVR software that does.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I haven't explained my self correctly.
I meant, will the tuner software recognize there's an IR blaster connected to the computer. I suppose the IR blaster will have a software on its own and it needs to work with the tuner software.
Here is why I ask this question:
A couple of years ago I had a tv tuner (Leadtek Wnfast TV FM 2000 Deluxe) and nowhere in the software I could see anything suggesting it could control a blaster or that it could communicate with another software for this purpose.

Thats why I'm worring, if it were for me and it was my money, I wouldn't be so paranoid. But this is for a friend and I don't want her to waste money....
 
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