Over-the-Air Digital Tuner for US

[Tinker]

Can anyone recomend a digital over-the-air tuner for the US? I am currently using a Hauppauge PVR-500 with GBPVR and I LOVE IT! Ever since I installed the dot-net patch my GBPVR is bullet proof. I want to try out a digital tuner an see what the reception is like. I like having a dual tuner but I have not seem many digital tuner cards with a dual tuner. I guess I just need to get two.

I have been looking at the Hauppauge HVR-950 but it looks like this device is not supported by GBPVR. Is that right? I guess it is a very new device maybe it will be supported in the future?

I am kind of new to the digital TV world (everyone needs to start somewhere) and I would love any tips or gottchas to look out for.

Thanks!

[sub]

I have been looking at the Hauppauge HVR-950 but it looks like this device is not supported by GBPVR. Is that right? I guess it is a very new device maybe it will be supported in the future?

This device will work fine for digital, but the analog side of it only ranks a 'maybe' until someone confirms. The analog side doesnt have hardware MPEG2 encoding, but may work if Hauppauge softpvr is installed (though will require a significant amount of CPU).

[Tinker]

Does this mean that the digital side does have hardware encoding? (Sorry for my ignorance) Does a digital signal require encoding? I read a review of the Hauppauge HVR-950 that showed a very high CPU usage on the digital side using the Hauppauge softwate. Is this the case?

[sub]

The digital stuff is already encoded by the broadcaster, so an encoder is not required as such.

I read a review of the Hauppauge HVR-950 that showed a very high CPU usage on the digital side using the Hauppauge softwate. Is this the case?

Recording will require just about no CPU, but playback of HDTV digital will require a lot of CPU.

[Arative]

Can anyone recomend a digital over-the-air tuner for the US? I am currently using a Hauppauge PVR-500 with GBPVR and I LOVE IT! Ever since I installed the dot-net patch my GBPVR is bullet proof. I want to try out a digital tuner an see what the reception is like. I like having a dual tuner but I have not seem many digital tuner cards with a dual tuner. I guess I just need to get two.

I have been looking at the Hauppauge HVR-950 but it looks like this device is not supported by GBPVR. Is that right? I guess it is a very new device maybe it will be supported in the future?

I am kind of new to the digital TV world (everyone needs to start somewhere) and I would love any tips or gottchas to look out for.

Thanks!

I use a fusion hdtv 5 RT lite and a kworld 110 for OTA high def digital content and love both of them. The kworld has problems pulling in my local PBS stations, whereas the fusion can detect the channel just fine. I believe the fusion has a better tuner but it is also about $40 more than the kworld. The fusion will not tune in GB if your OS it MCE unless you kill all the MCE services, they start with e. I'm happy with both of them.

As far as dual digital tuner, there are only two that I've come across, the cat's eye 164e and the myhd mpd130. The 164e isn't even out in the US yet, suppose to be out a couple of weeks ago but I wouldn't hold my breath, probably won't be available until after the first of the year. Then again no guarentee that the 164e will work with GB-pvr. I'm also not sure that the myhd card will work with gb, thats something Sub could probably answer.

[Mysteryman]

I'll second the Kworld 110. I don't have it working perfectly yet, but its about 95% of the way there. Sub isn't kidding when he talks about CPU consumption on HD playback. I highly recommend using a video card with "DVD acceloration". It can make a huge difference.

Another reason to go for a fairly recent video card is aspect ratio. HD content aspect ratios shift all over the place. If you're using Overlay or VMR7 I've found better performance, but you lose all of Sub's work for aspect ratio detection in VMR9 (custom only?). I believe I've read that this mode uses Direct3D to actually display the TV image (and transparencies). This can chew through a lesser card pretty quick. I'm using a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and it just barely cuts the mustard.

For anyone else reading this, please correct me if I have any of this wrong.

[unsword]

Regarding tuner cards for off-air HD in the USA, I'm using the AverMedia A180 - in fact I've got a couple of them in different systems. Works fine, no compatability issues with GBPVR.

I cant comment on how the tuner performs relative to others, but my advice would be to spend a few $ on the antenna system to ensure that you give any tuner the best possible signal to work with in the first place. I went with a high gain bowtie antenna (attic mounted) with a decent amp close to the antenna to allow for some of the long cable runs and splitters I have to feed the receivers in my GBPVR systems (and my TV).

I'm about 37 miles from all the major stations transmitters in Atlanta and pull every local station in fine.

I've got my two GBPVRs configured with PVR150s and A180s, the PVR150s are on my cable feed and the A180 off-air, this allows some flexibility and gives me dual-tuner capability with the one downside that I have to be selective as to which show I want to record in HD if there is a need to record two shows at once. (plus I have the video library drives cross-mapped to the recordings directory of the other and that way I can do two simulataneous HD recordings if I want to and play them on either box)

[Tinker]

Thanks guys! I will do some more research a make sure my PC has enough poop to handle the HD playback. This is good information.

[whurlston]

Check out the HDHomeRun. Not officially supported, but I got it to work with gbPVR. Dual Tuner ATSC and QAM.