US Over-The-Air Broadcast Tuner Recommendation

[smajor]

Hi all. I know virtually nothing about receiving over-the-air-TV, but I've been reading to catch up. I'm currently using a couple of HDPVRs with NPVR and my cable TV provider.

I'm in a rural area in the US that, until recently, received no over-the-air signals. I'm told we now get 4 stations fairly easily. I'd like to get a tuner to see how things work. Any recommendation would be helpful. I think my requirements are modest:

1) obviously needs to be compatible, as simply as possible, with NPVR.

2) can be PCI, PCI-E, or USB based. I have room for anything on my hardware.

3) external antenna support? I suspect that is pretty standard.

Since this is an experiment, I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible. I can always "gear up" if we get more channels down the road. I plan to keep cable for awhile.

Thanks for any advice folks.

[pcostanza]

I played around with OTA for a week just to see what my old rabbit ear antenna could pickup. I used my HVR2250 and connected the almost 25 year old rabbit ear antenna to it and was able to get 7 local channels very clearly. It said there were others but they were not strong enough to pickup. Later, I tried a friends $50 window antenna and it picked up 12 channels. 2 were a little pixelated.

What tuner(s) do you currently have? They might be OTA compatible. As for antenna, you might want to check out antennaWeb You can choose the right antenna for your area and it will tell you which type you need to get the available channels in your area.

[smajor]

I have nothing in terms of a tuner for my PC. That's what I'm hoping for advice on. Thanks!

[pcostanza]

My advice would be Hauppauge tuners. Either the USB 950Q or if you want an internal device, the 1600 or the 2250. I've found Hauppauge products to be be reasonable in price, updated drivers and they work well in NPVR.

[BrettB]

My advice would be Hauppauge tuners. Either the USB 950Q or if you want an internal device, the 1600 or the 2250. I've found Hauppauge products to be be reasonable in price, updated drivers and they work well in NPVR.

I would second this advice. For testing, an inexpensive USB tuner is probably your best bet.

[mvallevand]

Before investing in a capture card many HD televisions have built in ATSC tuners many of which are pretty code quality.

The I recommend tvfool for finding stations Here's North Lawrence http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrappe...ad3d7a2359 Your LOS options aren't great, and upir best bet in Cornwall is still analog. I'm up in Ottawa where many of your potential stations are from and I think you would need a good antenna to get them, but my neighbour is able to get WNPI and others on channel 18 reliable with a cheaper external UHF antenna and we are much further then you from it.

OTA ATSC is great with the HDPVR though.

Martin

[johnsonx42]

PCIe: HVR-1250 - cheap, small, reliable. It's always been my best tuner.
PCI: HVR-1150 - the PCI version of the above, but I don't have one
USB: HVR-850 - this is my second tuner. I'm still torn on whether USB is just as good as PCIe. I've not had any problems I can absolutely pin on the HVR-850, but I always find myself eyeing it suspiciously.