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 Post subject: dvb noob question
PostPosted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:45 pm 
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Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:07 pm
Posts: 339
I recently lost my analog cable tv, and now I either have to switch to antenna analog or just bite the bullet and upgrade my tuner cards to digital.

Analog broadcasts here really suck in the chicago suburbs, and I understand the analog broadcasts will discontinue in 2008 anyway, so I might as well switch to digital now.

I don't have a HD tv and am not planning on getting one soon.

Should I get a digital tuner card for cable and/or antenna? Should I get one that reads HD? I know some shows, such as Smallville, are broadcast in HD, but I don't know if a regular digital tuner will be able to handle that or if I need a HD digital card.

I understand digital isn't the same as HD, but but that's about it.

I really don't want to get the digital cable box that my cable provider offers, since it would mean having to manually change channels for recordings.

I checked newegg out, but they don't seem to show very many non-hd cards, and many of them seem to be hyrids. I'm currently using the hauppage 500 card with dual analog tuners. I'll be ripping those out and switching entirely to digital if I can find a digital card.

So my question is, any advice on what kind of card(s) I should get or what I should do here? I'm hoping there's a decent digital dual tuner for cable or broadcast. Should I go with a HD tuner card even without a HD display?

Thanks in advance

Not sure it's important but I'm running 2 knoppmyth boxes each as follows.
R5E50
1 gig ram
1800 mhz amd athlon cpus
1 dual tuner hauppage 500 card
NVidia GeForce 7600 GS
80 gig HD

Btw, I know the HD recordings take up more space, but I'm hoping mere digital doesn't take any more than regular analog broadcasts.

Edit: I really don't want to use an irblaster. Reading hauppage's hybrid card descriptions, I find:

"* For Analog TV reception, you need an analog cable TV connection. If you have a digital cable set top box or a satellite box, the WinTV-HVR-1800 can connect via either Composite or S-Video inputs. Channel changing will be done using the IR blaster."

I'm hoping there are cards I can just plug in the cable to, rather than dealing with another box.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:06 pm 
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Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:07 pm
Posts: 339
I found
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... a&start=15
here, after searching Fry's for cards and finding the avermedia mcd 180.

This might just be the one I want, assuming myth likes it.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:28 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:27 am
Posts: 299
I'm in the Chicago burbs and I use the air2pc "ebay special" digital cards, and have a rooftop antenna. In the summer the reception can be spotty, as some channels (5 - 11) are more prone to weather interference and I have way too many splitters. I'm about 22 miles from downtown. I'm certain that a better tuner (or maybe better coax setup) would make the difference because my TV rarely loses the signal. That said, many people do just fine with the air2pc.

HD is merely a higher resolution digital broadcast. While you may not be planning on getting an HDTV, but that's a separate issue from dealing with the broadcast signal.

Your system is underpowered for HD. 80 gigs is not enough to store HD content. You can record HD and transcode to a lower quality and smaller size, but your CPU will take forever to do it. You'll also have jerky audio when using the on-screen menus.

A 300 gig drive is sufficient and these are on sale all the time for under $80. Consider a replacement CPU, minimum Sempron/Athlon 2800. Look on newegg or ebay for that.

Make SURE you have XvMC enabled AND working. You can search for threads on how to do that.

As for tuners, you can try the air2pc cards, they're fully supported and not expensive. Others here have been using the HD Homerun device which installs outside of the computer and connects via ethernet.

I can't comment on cable TV, I fired Conco$t before I got into all this. If you can't live without cable, there's always dish.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:39 am 
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Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:07 pm
Posts: 339
Thanks.
I'm way out from downtown too. Out in the nw suburbs.

I don't really trust antennas but I will try it. The one I was looking at could do both cable and antenna, although I'm not sure if it can do dual tuners both digital.

I don't really want to store HD. I just want digital. My concern is that some broadcasts might be only HD.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:04 am 
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:22 am
Posts: 777
Location: spencerport, ny (USA)
borgednow wrote:
I don't really want to store HD. I just want digital. My concern is that some broadcasts might be only HD.


You can count on it. OTA broadcasts of NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS will be HD. You may find some SD/digital sub-channels. In our area (Rochester NY) there are sub-channels for CW, 3 PBS channels, and of course, the infamous Weather+ on NBC.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:25 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:27 am
Posts: 299
borgednow wrote:
Thanks.
I'm way out from downtown too. Out in the nw suburbs.

I don't really trust antennas but I will try it. The one I was looking at could do both cable and antenna, although I'm not sure if it can do dual tuners both digital.

I don't really want to store HD. I just want digital. My concern is that some broadcasts might be only HD.


Go to avsforum.com and find the "Chicago OTA" thread, those guys can help you choose the right antenna. But I think the HD Homerun will pick up digital cable on the lower channels ("QAM")

With OTA, most sports, news, prime time and major event broadcasts are in HD only. Digital cable is supposed to be the same. You can compress it after its recorded, but that'll probably take hours with your CPU. Adding a second hard drive is not such a big deal, then you don't have to worry about storage.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:16 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2005 10:55 pm
Posts: 3161
Location: Warwick, RI
Hi

You may want to check out the HDHomeRun unit. It does one thing and quite well, digital. Dual tuners for over the air and / or QAM from the cable. Most any box can record the digital stream, of course it takes more horsepower and a good video card to play it out.

Also it's output (on cat5) is available to all your computers as it is external stand alone unit..

Mike


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:05 pm 
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Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:45 am
Posts: 36
I'm in the western burbs I currently have 2 digital Cards and 2 analog in my box. I would recommend going to newegg and getting a new Motherboard and processor. I know you can get an athlon 64 processor for around $40 bucks now a days. Depending on the ram you have you could probably rebuild for less than $200 bucks.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:53 pm 
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Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:07 pm
Posts: 339
Thanks everyone.

I appreciate all the responses.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:50 am 
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Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:54 am
Posts: 88
I just got caught in the same situation. I went home last night and ALL my channels had changed and come to find out my cable provider is converting to digital.

I was very happy with my "extended basic" analog package, not to mention I just upgraded my box and added a PVR-500 which gave me a total of 3 tuners (I already had a PVR-250). But it looks like that is all for nothing now.

So now I have to get digital tuners for my Myth box. I am trying to find cheap ones that work, I want a least 2 (maybe I can sell my analog ones on ebay to pay for digital ones).

I guess it is for the best in the long run.


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