internal DVB-S2 Card with Dual/Quad Tuner Recommendation

[mopped90]

Hi,

I'm looking for an internal dual/quad DVB-S2 card supporting HD, which is well working with NEXT PVR.

I want minimal watch with 2 clients and record at the same time, so I'm not sure if a dual or quad card is required.

It would be great if you can share ur expieriences with me

[Graham]

For digital TV ... Each frequency is a mux and each mux has (often) more than one TV channel. NextPVR can record every TV channel on one mux using one tuner. In the UK, each mux has about 4 or 6 TV channels.

A dual tuner card will record from two muxes, a quad card from four muxes.

Hauppauge devices are the most popular here. Many people use Hauppauge so the support here is very good.

For recordings, there is no link between the number of clients and the number of tuners. Live TV will require one tuner if two clients are looking at two channels on one mux. Live TV will require two tuners if two clients are looking at channels on two different muxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplex_%28TV%29

[mopped90]

Hi Graham,

Thanks for your reply, now I can calculate how much tuners are required

IMO a dual tuner card would be best for me, to reduce the amount of cards in my pc.

Does anybody know dual tuner cards? From Hauppauge I only found single tuners, right now.



Another topic is recording in HD format (h264), is a low profile card like collossus required or could that be handled by a powerful CPU with shared graphics?
I got a P8H77-M with an Intel 2120T i3 Quadcore, 16 GB of RAM and Crucial M4 64 GB SSD (SATA 6).

Thanks for the support in advance

[Graham]

Another topic is recording in HD format (h264), is a low profile card like collossus required or could that be handled by a powerful CPU with shared graphics?

For digital TV (DVB) NextPVR is "only copying" the broadcast from the tuner to the hard drive. There is very little for the processor to do during this "copy". A modest computer can record multiple HD shows at the same time.

The possible issue with HD is playback. Can your machine and graphics card playback HD? Some samples for testing are at ...

http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/

I suspect that your computer will have no problem with recording or playback.

Full disclosure ... "only copying" does not tell the whole truth because a lot of clever stuff is done by NextPVR (that also does not require much processor).

[Jaggy]

From my investigations in the past Dual & Quad DVB-S & S2 cards are not made by all that many manufactures..... the only readily available supply I could find was the TBS range of cards (quite a few forum users seem to use these cards)

[mopped90]

Thanks for the infos, helped me a lot!!!

Regarding the dvb s2 dual card, it seems that tbs cards have some issues with other software next to npvr.
I have read that digital devices cards are an option

I give some feedback when the card has been tested

[McLarenMP4]

I can put my support behind TBS cards, I have been using a single tuner TBS 6922 and have had no issues with it in nPvr. I will be going for a quad tuner TBS card in the future.

[mopped90]

Sounds good. TBS has had been the beter option, but I got afraid as soon as I found out there were issues with third party apps next to NPVR.

There was a thread about the quad TBS card 2 Month ago. So, you may read the thread before bying

I got an DIgital Devices DUal Tuner and if required I can expand this card easily with Digital Devices add on ... (forgot the name of it)

I think next weekend I will investigate in installing my brand new multiswitch for SAT an hopefully I got the time to test next pvr. The last month I had some issues with my HDDs in RAID 5 Intel Raid.

But anyway,when you've tried TBS Quad give a short feedback of it, especially when you are using thrid party apps

KR,
Chris

[Clanky]

I bought a TBS6891 dual card early last year. I ran it on a P43 Gigabyte mb alongside a Hauppauge DVB-T card & a TBS6280 dual DVB-T card. Both DVB-T cards performed with 100% reliability. The 6891 was ok most of the time but occasionally after a reboot it would not start, I cant remember what the exact error was. There are a few posts about this on the TBS forums.

I checked drivers, connections, different pci-e slots & anything else I could think of. I eventually decided to upgrade after coming into some money. Changing the mb to a Z77, i7 cpu & a Corsair 650W psu seems to have cured the problem, I suspect the bigger psu is responsible for the card working properly but I cant be sure. The old psu was a 450W Corsair
The 6891 has been fine for about 5 weeks, its performed perfectly, as have the other two cards.

[jcjefferies]

In an ideal world you would have a tuner for each mux so would never miss a recordings. Some people do this on DVB-T tuners where there tends to be a small number of Mux but is not practical on DVB-S systems with many more mux. It is almost impossible to estimate beforehand how many tuners are required. I started with one tuner which for me recorded about 80% or more of the required programmes. I bought a twin tuner so now often see two tuners in use and occasionally all three. There could still be the very odd occasion when a programme is missed because I don't have enough tuners but its not worth getting a fourth tuner.