Twinhan ATSC pci card cheap at geeks

[linene]

Edit(7/18/07): Price keeps dropping...in stock at geeks for $29.99 now Link: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=32500&cpc=SCH

Edit(6/13/07): Card appears to be back in stock at geeks.com for $33. I have been using two of these for 3 weeks now with gbpvr...they have been working great!

Edit(5/16/07): Appears to be in stock other places for ~$40. See this thread: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=26694

Edit(5/10/07): Appears to be out of stock now

FYI

Geeks.com is selling the TwinhanDTV ATSC (D+A) PCI Smart TV Tuner (Model 3250) for 34.99 +S/H. I used the coupon code DEALWORKER for 10% off, bringing it to $31.49. Shipping for me was $8 for one, and I ordered two cards and shipping did not change. Link: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=32500&cpc=SCH

My understanding (though I do not have one of these yet) is that is has a digital and an analog tuner in it. From forum searching, it looks like the digital side works with GBPVR, but not the analog side (I do not think it has an onboard mpeg encoder). There is mixed information whether or not it does QAM. It also looks like it is a full height pci card, so it might not fit in some of the small form factor boxes.

It looks like people have used this card successfully with GBPVR. It comes with a IR remote, but from what I can tell from forun searching, people have not had much luck with Twinhan remotes.

There is a thread discussing this deal on slickdeals:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=508951

When I get these in and working (hopefully) I will report back. Note: I am only interested in the digital tuner for OTA...I have no plans to mess with the analog tuner.:mad:

[flyswatta]

I ordered one of these last friday and got it yesterday. I didn't know about the 10% off though :mad:

I had it up and running with GBPVR in about 30 minutes. The scan took forever :confused: Once I had the channels that I was interested in, I stopped the scan.

One reason it went so fast for me was because I used to have a Twinhan 1025 installed so the BDA drivers were already there. It runs about 30% CPU while recording on my system.

I also didn't care about the analog side, I am only using the HD side. I figure I've 3 hardware analog tuners, so I could give a rip about the software tuner on the card

[linene]

flyswatta,

Any trouble with reception/signal strength?

As for the 10% off:p

I am anal about always looking for a coupon before I buy online...funny thing is though, for some reason, I could care less about coupons when I shop at grocery stores, etc.

[flyswatta]

flyswatta,

Any trouble with reception/signal strength?

No, not now

I have an arial antenna on the roof that I set up a while back - I've been using a directv box that I bought off of craigslist that does OTA standalone. Getting the antenna set up was kinda tricky though - go to antennaweb.org and key in your address and it will tell you where the broadcast towers are and what "rating" your antenna needs to be (based on your distance from the towers).

I fiddled around with trying to get the "best" signal before I just finally caved in bought a $5 compass at walmart and set the antenna at the exact direction. IIRC, the broadcast towers were at 182 & 184 degrees from me so I split the difference and pointed it to 183. That was this winter and then the trees between me and the towers "leafed in" this spring and my reception went to crap :mad: I ended up relocating the antenna on the other side of my house with nothing but clear skies to the towers.

Another good site for OTA HD is satelliteguys.us - they're more into OTA with STBs, but have a good forum section on OTA HD if you're wanting to figure out about antennas and how to get the best OTA reception.

What part of Minnesota are you in? My wife's from Eden Prairie outside of Minneapolis.

[zed]

It's out of stock when I checked a couple minutes ago...

[linene]

flyswatta...I grew up in North St. Paul (not actually part of the city of St. Paul...but a inner ring suburb just to the northeast of St. Paul), I now live in Lino Lakes a northern suburb of the twin cities where 35W and 35E merge again into interstate 35. I am using a HVR950 for ATSC right now and getting great reception ( I am about 10 miles from most of the towers). I think I read somewhere that someone thought that the reception was poor on the twinhan, but you know how that is, there are so many variables that tend to get lost in those discussions. (p.s. look at my post just before your last...I must have edited it just after your post, and I bet you missed my dig )

zed...thats a bummer, they were in stock at the time of my post, sorry about that.

[flyswatta]

I know computergeeks was selling them on Ebay also, so there may be one or two still out there. I think it was a buy it now for $38 w/ free shipping.

[linene]

fly,

Has you wife mentioned that Eden Prairie high school football is the closest thing we have to Texas high school football up here? Their coach is Mike Grant who is Bud Grant's son, former coach of the Vikings (and a legend around here).

[flyswatta]

I'll ask her about that tomorrow night. I do love giving my father in law crap about the Vikings I gave him hell about Brad Johnson last year and now he's here on the Cowboys :eek:

[linene]

Well the Vikings are not in much better shape without him. Traveris (sp?) Jackson has a lot to prove :confused: