KWorld DVB-T DUAL HDTV Tuner PCI Express Cards - WHAT ARE THEY LIKE?

[locutusofb]

Does anyone know where the hauppage is available from? I tried the distributor listed in the review link above and my normal online sources - no luck. I guess it could still be yet to be released - in which case the 310 / S2 looks to be a very nice card.

[pawelg]

Originally Posted by locutusofb

Does anyone know where the hauppage is available from? I tried the distributor listed in the review link above and my normal online sources - no luck. I guess it could still be yet to be released - in which case the 310 / S2 looks to be a very nice card.

Try this

[Mark1]

Has anyone had a go at the Hauppauge HVR-2200 yet?

Would love to hear your experience...

I pick mine up tomorrow. Now that I have finally rid myself of Dvico, I hope the HVR-2200 works out well.

[kieran45]

In case there weren't enough options out there already, I thought I would bring in another.

I have a AverMedia AverTv Duo Hybrid PCIe, which is I think a pretty new card. This comes with a whole pile of junk in the box (Driver/software CD, remote, cables, manual), none of which I have removed from the box.

I just plugged in the card, let Vista download a driver, and MCE found it and set it up straight away.

The only down side for me is that you need two aerial cables plugged into the back.

If you are in melbourne, CPL have these for $115, which is pretty good for a dual digital/analogue tuner.

[Mark1]

YES!! I have found the one tuner card to rule them all....

Check it out -
Hauppauge HVR-2200 - What a fantastic PCIe Dual Digital TV Tuner

[TheRob]

Originally Posted by Mark1

YES!! I have found the one tuner card to rule them all....

Check it out -
Hauppauge HVR-2200 - What a fantastic PCIe Dual Digital TV Tuner

Is it much different from the DNTV Dual Hybrid S2? These can be had for $149 delivered to your door and mine has performed fantastically.

[logifuse]

Originally Posted by TheRob

Is it much different from the DNTV Dual Hybrid S2? These can be had for $149 delivered to your door and mine has performed fantastically.

The main difference is onboard hardware MPEG2 encoding for analog - not an issue if you just want digital.

Different tuners/demodulator too, so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

[Mark1]

Feedback regarding the HVR-2200 will be posted in the linked thread -
Hauppauge HVR-2200 - What a fantastic PCIe Dual Digital TV Tuner

[wklopek]

Edit: My first impressions upon receiving a PE210R were incorrect. PE210R *IS* just as bad as the E700. I should have known better than to try out another MT2060 based device. The MT2060 is clearly a horrible tuner. Take these three cards:
- Terratec 2400i - Micronas APB7202A, Micronas DRX3975A, Thomson can tuner
- Compro E700 - Micronas APB7202A, Micronas DRX3975A, Microtune MT2060
- KWorld PE210R - Micronas APB7202A, Micronas DRX3975A, Microtune MT2060

Both of the Microtune cards are terrible whereas the Terratec is superb. I can only think it must be the tuners at fault because they're the only real difference between the cards.

At first I thought that it may be signal strength related, but even attenuating the signal doesn't help. All that does is make the weaker channels disappear altogether. I had a Pinnacle 2000i (also MT2060) and that also had issues with stronger channels. I sold it to somebody else and they had an even stronger signal strength and it was unable to even lock onto most channels. From this point on I will definately be avoiding any TV card using the MT2060 tuner.

Edit: I wonder if the IF frequency of the MT2060 makes a difference here? I seem to recall reading somewhere that IF1 of the MT2060 is specific to each chip manufactured and that this value should be stored in EEPROM. I wonder if these cards are simply using a default value?

[mitchellross]

Hi all
If I was looking for a dual tuner PCI card, what would you suggest? I don't have a free PCIe spot

Cheers!