FreeviewHD in NZ - for someone with a SD tv?

[frynturn]

I've been using my old Sky dish with a NOVA-S card for a while with no problems. The only disadvantage is that it's only a single tuner and occasionally the ends of programs get cutoff when switching from recording on one channel straight over to another channel. However I am looking at getting a UHF aerial installed primarily to allow me to watch primeTV via a PVR-150 but also to hook up to a NOVA-T 500 to give me my multiple tuners.

My question is does switching to DVB-T open up a whole can of worms for me to do with hardware decoding of the HD stream or is there a SD stream as well:confused: (I just want to make it clear that I realise my SD tv is never going to magically become a HD tv. But can I take the HD signal and downgrade it to my SD tv?)

I have an Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard with AMD 690G Chipset which I understand can't handle the HD signal(?) I've been doing some testing with an indoor aerial (I live in very good reception area) but I'm not sure if the signal is the problem or if it is the hardware. I do have a passively cooled GT8500 card I foolishly rushed out and bought but the heatsink covers one of my PCI slots (why didn't I get the PCI-e HVR-2200 instead??? arghhh!!!) so if I do need to use the graphics card for DVB-T then I'll need to upgrade the mobo to handle my 3xPCI cards. Anyone have any ideas? Any mobo recommendations for AMD chip?

TIA

[sub]

On a SD TV, I probably wouldnt bother trying to go to FreeviewHD yet. There is a lot of complications and things that dont work as well with H.264 channels and .ts files, and the lack of DVB EPG on FreeviewHD. You'd probably be better off sticking with DVB-S.

[jezz2020]

Totally agree, I am using the exact setup (PVR 150 for prime, nova-T 500 for freeview) and while pic quality is great, various issues such as fast forwarding / rewinding, unable to transcode, and occasional audio sync issues have driven me round the bend on more than one occasion. Personally am praying the next release of GBPVR might help improve seeking on my setup (any eta on that Sub??), will keep ya posted.

[hasso]

I have an Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard with AMD 690G Chipset which I understand can't handle the HD signal(?)

I've got this MB as well, being used as a client. Onboard graphics card does not have hardware acceleration, so when watching Freeview HD programs the CPU (5200 dual core AMD) runs at about 80 to 90% utilisation... playback seems to be smooth, but very little headroom. My GBPVR server uses a Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 motherbaord. Works great for me and has plenty of "legacy" PCI slots

[frynturn]

Thanks hasso - that motherboard looks nice. I have a micro-ATX case as my HTPC which rules it out. I guess I'm looking at a new case as well as a motherboard!


OK on 2nd thoughts I think I will cut my losses and purchase the HVR-2200 card. Then I can have my graphics card in the PCIe16 slot (heatsink covers PCI clot), my HVR-3000 can go in the 2nd PCI slot giving me the DVB-S and then the HVR-2200 can go in the PCIe1 slot giving me my prime and DVB-T.

What's the chances of none of this working !