FM Tuner with Digital TV

semisential · **2nd February 2005, 07:54 PM**

Heya,

I'm in nerd heaven building my first media centre pc, but I've hit a snag.

After buying a Haupage digital tuner card (and gettign it up in around 2 minutes!) I decided the next stage would be to add FM to the box.

Well every FM card I investigate is also a analogue TV tuner card, and I've read that MCE won't handle two TV Tuner cards of different models/brands.

Are there any FM only cards available or any other solutions?

Cheers!

Semisential

semisential · **3rd February 2005, 09:01 PM**

Hmmm...

The lack of response tends to tell me that know one knows a way around this problem.

Further investigations...

MICROSOFT: Don't ask us, talk to your reseller.
RESELLER: Microsoft should help you.
HARVEY NORMAN: "Why do you want digital TV anyway.... here, buy this analogue card... it's the way of the future!"

Mike · **4th February 2005, 07:40 AM**

Hi there semisential and welcome

Sorry - you snuck in down here and I missed you - don't get a complex eh

'

I've chosen to not run digital TV just yet even though I own a Dvico Fusion card because on my old TV, dgital shrinks the screen too much - saving the pennies for a widescreen LCD :P

BUT - I have both cards installed in my machine and whilst they don't work together (record one watch the other) I can switch between them and retune the card.

What I've been trying to do for the last 1/2 an hour is to select and tune the Dvico, run digital TV but still use the FM radio from the analogue card.* I've run out of time now but I got 1/2 way there, I managed to get digital audio but no picture (not a blank screen - just badly tuned reception it seemed like)

BUT - I was able to get clear FM radio from the analogue TV tuner at the same time.

I need to do more tonight and see if I can get a digital picture and I'll report back.

semisential · **4th February 2005, 11:26 AM**

Thanks Mike for the hard work, interested to see what you find.

Talking with Altech further, their guy says it SHOULD be able to be done with installing another analogue TV/FXcard in the PC, but he hasn't done it himself. I guess I'm wondering how MCE would decide which TV Tuner card it was going to look at for TV?

NewMagic · **9th February 2005, 08:21 PM**

Hi,

Unfortunately support for FM tuners + Digital DVBT TV wont happen in MCE until we have support for analogue and digital TV. If you try installing an analogue card (such as our Hauppauge PVR 150/250 MCE) with FM tuner and a Digital card (such as our Nova T MCE) in the same system, MCE will detect both but force you to choose which you want to use as the "Tuning space". Once you choose "Digital" MCE ignores FM tuners completely, since it associates them with analogue tuning space.

Once Microsoft release support for analogue + Digital dual tuner configs this will be fixed. Note that in the US this is already possible since MCE can support ATSC (the US Digital TV standard) plus analogue tuner setups, just not analogue + DVBT (our Digital system) setups.

Regs

Mark
New Magic Australia

Mike · **9th February 2005, 08:38 PM**

Thanks for that Mark - now I can close my machine!

I've spent days trying to get digital TV working with analogue FM radio and came so close - but never quite got there - now I know I'm wasting my time.

Mike

semisential · **9th February 2005, 08:56 PM**

Thanks Mark. I appreciate your advise and Mikes hard work.

I guess being a poineer has it's hickups along the way, but hey how boring would this task be if everything just worked!

I'll keep my ears open for advice from MS in the future. Since my original post I have found how to get the stations I miss through the web. Quality is lacking, but hey I'm not complaining.

Due to intermitant lockups though (think it is my pc rather than MCE) my wife has forced me to move the box from the lounge room back into my study.

I WILL PREVAIL!!

OffBeatMammal · **7th July 2005, 11:51 AM**

oh well, it would be such a handy thing.
That said, there's only one FM radio station I listen to these days, but it would still be nice to be able to pick that up on the occasions when I don't feel like the MP3 collection.
Maybe once MCE supports AC3 audio we'll be able to listen to the ABC Radio offerings over digital instead

One thought, would it be possible somehow to put an FM tuner in another machine and forward the audio (somehow... I have some more research to do here I think !) to the living room MCE machine when needed ?

benneh · **7th July 2005, 01:08 PM**

Thanks for the info, I was looking at getting an avermedia hybrid in the hope that I could use it as a second DVB-T tuner and also an FM tuner. Looks like I can't have my cake, and eat it