Time to trash the Cinergy 2400i DT

[daneo]

After almost two excruciating years with my TerraTec card, I've decided to trash it...

1. Poor tuners, lack sensitivity and won't lock the signal
   
2. Ongoing glitches once locked, cause MVP sync problems later
   
3. Out of warranty
   

Even worse, the darn thing caused Windows XP to hang every time it booted -- I kept having to press Enter 3x each time I needed a restart. You can't imagine how amazed I was when I watched my PC boot without assistance once I'd swapped the card...

I've moved on to the Pinnacle Systems PCTV 3010ix (dual DVB-T PCIe, with hybrid analogue support but not worth the trouble to enable) and violia! my PC now works like the good Lord intended.

The signal quality on the Pinnacle card is much better than TerraTec's, and the price is unbeatbable: € 30 at Pearl. I'd plug in another one a slot were free! You do have to use the alternate driver (BlackGold) but once I'd sassed that it was easy sailing...

[cdldt]

I'm not going to argue with you about reliability of the Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT. They seem to have a tendency for the second tuner to die. I don't think the tuners themselves are inherantly bad - Hauppauge use a similar Thomson tuner on their Nova-T PCI and I've used and abused several of those cards and never had a tuner go bad on me. I've had three of these Terratecs RMA'd with the same fault. Interestingly, the one which I've never had problems with is a second hand one from eBay.

I was beginning to think that I must have been doing something to them to land 3 bad cards, but then I think that other cards in the same slots using the same coaxial feeds work without problems.

For me, the best TV cards are those from Hauppauge and Pinnacle. People complain about Hauppauge, but I've found that if you give them an accurate description of a driver problem, with details of how they can reproduce it, they will fix it if it can be fixed. I might be accused of being biased since I'm a moderator for their UK support forum but I'm just another Hauppauge customer like anyone else.

The Pinnacle 3010iX is a reasonable card at any price. At the price they're selling it for, it's an excellent card. The antenna inputs can be a bit quirky with certain drivers (it is best to use the BlackGold/GDI driver on it rather than the driver from Pinnacle or the one provided with Windows Vista) but reception quality is great. The Pinnacle 7010iX on the other hand is the sort of thing I'd expect to see in Aldi - a superb product at a ridiculously low price. I bought the 7010iX thinking "sod it if it doesn't work 100% it's so cheap" but it does work great (again with BlackGold drivers). The good thing about the 3010iX and 7010iX is that for as long as Philips/NXP keep producing new reference drivers, they will always be supported because they stick so close to the NXP reference designs.

[Bathman]

I have to second the Pinnacle 3010iX card. Mine has been excellent i've had no problems with it at all. Unlike my Nova 500 which I had no end of driver issues (although hauppauge to their credit did change it - Mine wouldn't work with AMSD chips or linux).

I paid about 30 quid for my 3010iX however now they are under 20 quid delivered - excellent value.

Got a 7010iX in the post as we speak BBC HD here we come - and for under 30 quid. Great - I am such a geek.

[cdldt]

Interestingly, the one which I've never had problems with is a second hand one from eBay.

I Jinxed it. :o

Today the 2400i (my last and final "sample" of this piss-poor product) spent about 10 minutes trying to lock onto Five for the Christmas lectures followed by a couple of minutes of garbage once it did finally manage to lock before proceeding to make a glitch-filled recording. Obviously, this was on the 2nd tuner. Meanwhile the Topfield PVR downstairs had zero problems.

I don't even think (now) that any of my cards have ever been faulty, even the ones that were exchanged under RMA. The performance that I've seen out them seems normal based on what others have written about them too.

The fact that Terratec cannot be bothered to respond to e-mails is the icing on the cake.

[NG66]

Hi

I have a Pinnacle 3010iX, so could anyone who has got this working tell me how I set up GBPVR to use the second tuner, I have tried to set up a second digital capture as per the first (which is working fine) and it seems to work except the audio dies after a minute or so - starts to get out of sync then missing bits then stops completely. Changing channels resets it for another few minutes but then it starts again. How can I be sure I am actually using the second tuner whan setting up another source?

Thanks

[Bathman]

misses is recording at the mo so I cant view cofig.

But you set the first tuner to device 1. (i suspect you have done this already)

the add a second device keep the name of the device the same (3010ix or in my case blackgold BGT3450 (i think) as I use blackgolds driver.

Then below this you select device 2. scan etc

This threw me for some time as with my old crapper nova 500 its different.