Yet Another Hybrid Tuner Card Question (YAHTCQ)

[destr0y]

Hi All,

I ordered (well, I haven't given them my visa details yet, thankfully) a Dvico FusionHDTV Hybrid (analog/digital) card today, after what I thought was a fairly extensive review process - until I changed my search keywords to "hybrid" instead of "FusionHDTV" - DOH!

My situation:

I've got Austar "Digital" Pay TV (satellite based STB with analog outputs, of course). I'd like to be able to watch/record this, and also be able to watch/record digital free-to-air TV. Now, I was going to buy a dual digital instead and an analog card, but thought I'd dip my toe in the pool by buying a hybrid, then by the 2nd digital card later on.

From searching these forums tonight, I can see I'm in for a rough ride with this card, should I go ahead with it. Can someone dumb down the exclamations of "can't mix digital/analog tuners!!" a bit for me? (I've never even installed MCE, but plan to as soon as the new card comes in.) Can you answer the following for me? I know this is done to death, but I just can't reconcile the fact that Dvico are saying these things are fully supported by MCE....?!?!

1) Can I watch/record digital (FTA), while watching austar (Austar/Foxtel)?

2) Can I switch between watching digital/analog without much fuss? (ie, I don't have to reboot the PC or something retarded like that to swap between the two surely?)

3) Should I be ditching the hybrid and going with 1 x dual digital + 1 x analog?

4) Is a tuner card even needed for Austar? Or should I just get a decent video capture card?

I've resigned to the fact that I won't be able to administer the Austar STB via MCE (ie, change channels etc), so thats not an issue for me. I do intend to eventually have two digital tuners for watching/recording FTA digital though.

Begging for some 11th hour advice!!

Cheers,
Brett

[mrees]

Originally Posted by destr0y

Hi All,

1) Can I watch/record digital (FTA), while watching austar (Austar/Foxtel)?

2) Can I switch between watching digital/analog without much fuss? (ie, I don't have to reboot the PC or something retarded like that to swap between the two surely?)

3) Should I be ditching the hybrid and going with 1 x dual digital + 1 x analog?

4) Is a tuner card even needed for Austar? Or should I just get a decent video capture card?

I

Welcome to the forums Brett.
Yo uwill find these questions have been already answered in the forums. Please try and use the search function. It saves multiple posts. In order to help you out with your answers:


1) Can I watch/record digital (FTA), while watching austar (Austar/Foxtel)? Unfortunately NO. This is a limitation of MCE and DVB-T Tuners. This is hopefully fixed in the next release of MCE.

2) Can I switch between watching digital/analog without much fuss? (ie, I don't have to reboot the PC or something retarded like that to swap between the two surely?) NO. MCE needs to be setup to understand how to either use FTA Digital tuning or to control your set top box. You cannot do both

3) Should I be ditching the hybrid and going with 1 x dual digital + 1 x analog? I would see no real reason to do this (anyone else have a differing opinion??), at least by going hybrid you should be futureproofing yourslelf for when the above changes come into play with Vista.

4) Is a tuner card even needed for Austar? Or should I just get a decent video capture card? A tuner is necessary as that is the way MCE expects the signal to be distributed to it, even though the tuner is theoretically not being fully utilised.

I've resigned to the fact that I won't be able to administer the Austar STB via MCE (ie, change channels etc), so thats not an issue for me. I do intend to eventually have two digital tuners for watching/recording FTA digital though.

MCE can control your Settop box by using the remote IR receiver and IR blaster that comes with the Mediacentre remote control. Yes you cant really bring up menu's etc in Austar, but you should definately be able to change channels using the IR blaster and channel mappings.

[destr0y]

Thanks for the reply mate. It does confirm what I'd already read in these forums.

I did use the search forums, but I still felt I needed to hear someone confirm it, lest what came up in the forums search had been superceded by either recent patches/rollups/etc from MS, or through some magic driver updates...

I know this is done to death, but I just can't reconcile the fact that Dvico are saying these things are fully supported by MCE....?!?!

Its the panic before diving off the top springboard thing

Hmmm. It might be worth my while buying an MCE remote - I was already going to buy one of those sexy new MCE keyboards, but I guess I'll need both. I'm using a Silverstone LC10 case, which has a decent IR based remote and HTPC app (IMON/IMEDIAN) with it.

Cheers,
Brett