HVR-2200 (and other hybrid tuners)

[SteveS1949]

Hi,
I am looking at getting a tuner that can watch/record 2(or more) channels simultaneously. Are these cards (HVR-2200) able to do this? I am a little confused around the hybrid dual tuner capabilities

Steve

[vintdiesel]

Hi Steve,
My understanding is this, someone please correct me if wrong.

The card is hybrid because it has 2 analogue tuners and 2 digital tuners on board.

You can record either two analogue frequencies, or one analogue and one digital frequency, or two digital frequencies simultaneously.

Note I stated frequency especially for the digital world. In reality several digital TV channels are muxed on the same frequency, therefore a single tuner can record all TV channels playing on the same frequency at the same time. Having 2 digital tuners means you could record quite a few digital TV channels at once playing on 2 different frequencies. With analogue 1 frequency = TV 1 channel only.

[Graham]

Hi,
I am looking at getting a tuner that can watch/record 2(or more) channels simultaneously.

How do you receive TV? In the UK, your options include digital terrestrial ... DVB-T/T2 - this is Freeview via an aerial ... digital satellite DVB-S/S2 - Freesat (and other free satellite channels) via a dish. You might receive satellite or cable from Sky or Virgin via a set top box. Typically, you would need to connect the STB to a tuner card in a PC, probably via composite or S-video ... this would be an analogue connection (this is similar to analog but less foreign).

For a digital connection, the tuner tunes to a frequency that carries a multiplex (mux) and that mux may carry several channels. For example, on Freeview, most BBC channels are on a single frequency/mux. NextPVR tells the tuner to tune to the frequency/mux and NextPVR then receives all of the channels on that mux and can record any or all of the channels on that mux. Something similar happens with Freesat though there are typically fewer channels per "mux" on satellite (and a great many more "muxes").

When you receive the TV signal from a STB via an analogue connection into the tuner, the tuning is done by the STB and the STB is only able to pass a single channel to the tuner. NextPVR can only record a single channel on each tuner that is using an analogue connection from an STB.

For Freeview, most UK homes can receive six muxes and these carry all of the channels ... so with six tuners, you could record all Freeview channels at once (in theory). Free to air digital satellite has a zillion "muxes" plus there is the small matter of LNBs and all that.

The starting point in deciding which tuner is ... How do you receive TV?

[Zeb]

Hi SteveS1949. First of all, your previous post "Video cutting out on DVB-S with both NextPVR and XBMC clients" that no one answered sounds like a known issue of live TV freezes on client machines described in this thread: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ent-V2-6-2 . Sub has said he intends to get back to work on that problem. I wouldn't abandon DVB-S for DVB-T just for that reason.
As for the HVR-2200: Hauppauge is a good brand, but is its analogue capability even needed in the UK these days?

[Kiwi]

I think it's better to be more future-proof and get a DVB-T2 tuner that can also tune to DVB-T.

[SteveS1949]

I was thinking similar kiwi - I found some TBS DVB-T2 cards following posting this. Thanks
Zeb - ill take a look at that thread, thanks. Also, there is no need for analogue (we switched over a while back) but I liked that it was a dual and could do 2x DVB-T streams at once.

Thanks for all the info Graham and all

[Zeb]

There was a thread devoted to DVB-T2 tuners a few months ago: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ons-Please