Best Analog and ClearQAM capture card

[colinnwn]

I am planning to set up GB-PVR for my parents. Personally I've been running MythTV for several years, but it is more than I want to support for them.

I've read the wiki and some of this forum. I'd like to know if I have the right impression on the best capture cards for GB-PVR. I want a capture card that is as rock solid as you can get, supports ClearQAM and analog, and is as affordable as possible. I only need 1 tuner for now, and I have PCI, PCI-e, and USB inputs available.

It seems the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is the gold standard. The HVR-1950 also looked interesting. I was initially leaning towards the HVR-1600, until I discovered it has poor ClearQAM sensitivity for many. I also saw the HVR-1800, but I don't know where it fits in all of this. Does anyone have thoughts on these, or other capture devices you may feel are better?

I was initially conflicted between MediaPortal and GB-PVR. After researching, it seems most people believe GB-PVR is more robust, and the support for media extenders really encouraged me to go with it. Hopefully the PCH A-200 will be supported soon, otherwise I guess I'll have to get an old A-100 for them.

Thanks to all the developers. It sounds like this is more polished than MythTV and will set up relatively easily.

[donschjr]

My 2250 is much better for Qam then my 1600's, that being said in order to get all the clear Qam channels working in GBPVR I had to do multiple scans and use the wizbda tool to map the channels. Each scan I did would find different channels while Wintv7 found them all right away.

[pcostanza]

I'm in the same boat with my 1600. Even Media Center has trouble not loosing the channels. My 2250 has been rock solid and I have had a number of Hauppauge cards and feel comfortable with them even with their very slow driver updates.

[steveum]

I have a 1600, 1800 and a 2250. For me the 2250 is so much better than the other two.

[ElihuRozen]

The 1600 gets all the QAM channels, but when Comcast moved them to new frequencies I ran into problems. My TV, Set Top Box & DTA could all still get the QAM channels when going through my cable amplifier, but the 1600 could not. I had to add another splitter & give it the signal from before the amp. Now, it gets all the channels again.

The 1800, which is basically a PCI-Express version of the 1600, doesn't seem to get any QAM channels, ever. I bought it off EBay when the 1600 wasn't working & assumed it would be better. Wasted a lot of testing time trying to get the 1800 to work for QAM when I could have been diagnosing the above issue with the 1600. I might try contacting Hauppauge to see if I can swap it for an 1800 that works for QAM.

In the unlikely event you want to read my original post about my problems & solution, see http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=45101.

[steveum]

Your 1800 story sounds a lot like my experience. I had a 1600 that worked reasonably well, then I picked up a new 1800 cheap on ebay so I could record two QAM channels. The 1800 did not work with QAM at all. I exchanged it with the ebay merchant. The replacement did not work either. I then sent it to Hauppauge. They replaced it. The replacement sort of works, but not nearly as well as the 1600. One of the main problems I had with the 1800 was scanning channels. The tuning frequencies it would discover usually did not work. I would have use the ones from the 1600. I would have recordings fail to start, stop partially through the recording and/or many with screwed up timelines that would need to be remuxed.

I finally got fed up with the situation and got a 2250 about 3 months ago. For me, it works so much better than even the 1600. At this point, I am just using the 2250.

[ga_mueller]

I've had great results with my hvr-950q, although it's clear QAM/ATSC only and won't work with analog with gbpvr..