Twinhan ATSC pci card cheap at geeks

[linene]

I now have my two Twinhan ATSC pci cards installed. I went to the Twinhan site and grabbed the BDA drivers for the 3250 model card (this card is labeled as a 32500 on the box, but the pcb board label suggests it is a 3250). Since there is no mention of the 32500 on twinhans website, I used the latest drivers for the 3250 version. Selected Twinhan ATSC in the GBPVR tuner config. Everything is working great now, both tuners recording ATSC (OTA) in parellel (I did have a problem initially with an error due watching LiveTV due to a previous installation of the an Hauppauge HVR-950 not being present anymore: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=26740.) Signal strength seem to be similar to what I was experiencing with the HVR-950, so that is good...I am just using a cheap interior UHF antenna located in my basement...I am only 7 miles from the broadcast towers.

Very excited about this cheap way of doing multiple ATSC channel recording.

[flyswatta]

Awesome! I might be on the lookout for another card once I work out my HD playback issues It's definately a lot cheaper than buying a HDHomerun or an ATSC STB tuner - or even an old direct tv OTA HD STB!.

[flyswatta]

I went to the Twinhan site and grabbed the BDA drivers for the 3250 model card (this card is labeled as a 32500 on the box, but the pcb board label suggests it is a 3250). Since there is no mention of the 32500 on twinhans website, I used the latest drivers for the 3250 version.

I noticed that they have a problem with "Attention to Detail" when I opened my TwinHan PCI card and the manual was for a TwinHan USB model.

It didn't really matter since I'd already downloaded the PDF manual for the card from thier website.

[linene]

I also had the usb manual The manual that is online also leaves much to be desired.

As I mentioned above, I was using a single hvr-950 for recording. I had planned to get another one of those, but the cheapest I could find was ~$70 bucks (i hate rebates). Also, I intuitivly thought I should get pci cards verses usb cards, since my experience has been pci cards (in general, not just tuner cards) have less issues as you increase their number (and I had the room for 4 more pcis). So far, so good:o

[flyswatta]

Yeh, it's written for both the satellite card and the atsc tuner. In fact, I have the satellite card and had removed it from this box, and the atsc card is using those BDA drivers .

Honestly, I'd like to eventually remove my Direct TV STB for OTA HD and add a second one of these cards, but I'm not convinced that I don't have some playback issues to work through yet. I was watching Heroes on Monday and it just "froze". Fortunately I also recorded it as SD, so I switched over to that recording.

I basically play back the files over a mapped drive with Media Center Classic (for HD) and VLC (for SD) on my "main" computer but get some wierd resolution issues with the HD. I couldn't get GBPVR as a client to playback the HD. I should probably spend some more time on it to get it working that way.

[linene]

Does it have the same chip?

[topperdude]

I noticed this comes with an IR receiver (for the remote). Does the IR receiver plug into the card or does it go into a USB port?

Also, a more general qs re. GBPVR - how do I configure EPG if I have multiple tuners? I have two analog tuners. Do I configure the same zap2it account for both under EPG Plugin in the Capture Sources tab or just one of them (leaving the capture source for the second analog tuner to none)?

Thanks,
-Topper

[linene]

I noticed this comes with an IR receiver (for the remote). Does the IR receiver plug into the card or does it go into a USB port?

USB port, but i have not attempted to use it. From the forums, it looks like it may not work with gbpvr.

Also, a more general qs re. GBPVR - how do I configure EPG if I have multiple tuners? I have two analog tuners. Do I configure the same zap2it account for both under EPG Plugin in the Capture Sources tab or just one of them (leaving the capture source for the second analog tuner to none)?

Thanks,
-Topper

I am not sure if this is right, but i configured it the same for both which meant remapping for both as well. Maybe there is an easier way? By the way, I do not use the analog tuners on the card, only the ATSC tuners.

[flyswatta]

I noticed this comes with an IR receiver (for the remote). Does the IR receiver plug into the card or does it go into a USB port?

Also, a more general qs re. GBPVR - how do I configure EPG if I have multiple tuners? I have two analog tuners. Do I configure the same zap2it account for both under EPG Plugin in the Capture Sources tab or just one of them (leaving the capture source for the second analog tuner to none)?

Thanks,
-Topper

I didn't even mess with the IR stuff.
You can use the same zap2it account for all of your analog devices- for the digital ones, you can either "select and unselect" the proper channels for each device (ie. for the analog devices, unselect the digital channels and for the digital devices, select the digital channels and unselect the analog channels) OR set up another zap2it account with only digital channels on it.

[topperdude]

Thanks for the replies, linene and flyswatta!

Its interesting (in a good way, IMO) Twinhan has a USB IR receiver, unlike Hauppauge whose IR receiver plugs into their card. Its good because then it atleast allows me to try and connect the USB IR receiver to a computer that does not have the tuner in it (e.g. a computer setup as a GBPVR client) and try to configure it with a software such as HIP or EventGhost. Any issues using the IR receiver in this way?

Also, does the IR Receiver include plugs in the back for connecting IR Blasters?

Thanks,
-Topper