So, as a general statement for future readers, how would you order the cards? (Best to worst)?

So, as a general statement for future readers, how would you order the cards? (Best to worst)?
I only have 3 cards so my experience is limited.

I'd say if you're on XP Pro (non-MCE), the KWorld PCI120 is hard to beat. The software (Arcsoft Total media 3) and remote actually work very well.

Frontends users, the Hauppauges are good and pretty well supported. The ATSC tuner corrects errors the best among the 3 cards I have.

The ATI650 is a cool card with hardware analog encoding. I paid $70 for my Sapphire 'Lite' version, the other ones with softwares goes for $120 easy. It is really no better than the KWorld (at 1/3 the price).

For anyone that concerns with sensitivity of the tuners, the Hauppauge is best but mine still have down times often on Buffalo channels. None has ever lost a Toronto channel. A decent antenna with enough elevation is what you (and I) need to look into.

Any news or review for the new Haupaugge WinTV-HVR-2250?

When it will be available here in the great white north and the pricing in CDA.

I'm building my own pvr/htpc and I'm looking for a tv tuner card for OTA

The card specs. look good...

Haupauge site:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2250.html

I emailed hauppauge and they stated it would be available in October in Canada.

Depending on what you want to do with the card the reviews vary. Many people thought the FM input was a secondary input which changed things for many people. It forces it to be dual QAM, or OTA. It also cannot be used as ATSC and NTSC card at same time like the 1600/1800.

I have a 1600 already and was only looking for a dual OTA tuner. This card fits the bill well for that.

I have been looking often and so far only ncix has it listed on their website for sale. It says 1 - 2 weeks but I am not holding my breath to get it that quickly.

I just want to record OTA shows no simsub;)

Basically the HTCP will be use as a big PVR for OTA

And maybe later I will get the HDTV adapter to record from the HDTV STB box.

October from Hauppauge.....good timing by this time hopefully my HTCP should be up and running.

I experienced a little hiccup with my bedroom rig :

Asus M2A-VM (690G)
A64 4000+ x2 @ 2.4GHz
2GB RAM
Kworld PCI-120 & Hauppauge PVR-150
XP Pro SP2 all in a nicely tugged away SilverStone LC11B case

Today I feed a RG6 from the 4221 to watch some tennis.
The rig has crashed twice...the second time it didn't require reboot but the ATSC tuner was stuck on 57.1 on every tuner software I tried, a window reboot fixed it. I don't think it's software because the TotalMedia3 has been rock solid in my other rigs. Possibly overheating but don't know whether it's the 690G or the PCI-120...and I highly suspect it's the PCI-120 TV card.

It's a little disappointing as the functionality is so good along with a high WAF.

hi,

i have the hauppauge hvr1800 and its supposed to be able to pick up OTA HD. anyone have experience with this or able to give me some concrete instructions on scanning for hd channels?

thanks

edit:

I'm in Vancouver BC. the antenna i built is pretty much taken off this guide http://members.shaw.ca/hdtvantenna/ ..

im about 15km SW of the broadcast towers (Seymour mountain)

edit:
i found using the hauppauge for configuring channels sucked. i downloaded sagetv and it works perfectly with OTA HD

This is current setup: Cogeco cable signal comes into bedroom and goes thru 3-way splitter, one to analog TV (that in turn is fed from digital modem for sports package), one to old VCR and one to router in next room. That router feeds my computer and another computer about 50 feet away in another room. Two router outlets available. Would a TV tuner card such as Dvico Fusion HDTV7 or other brand "see" a TV signal or an internet signal? Read most posts here until eyes glazed over. All I want is to watch the odd sports program on 20" computer monitor. Not interested in HDTV per se at this time. sailmaker

You lost me at the "one to router" step. Your cable connects to a router? or..? Could you clarify this a bit?
Tv tuner cards must be fed directly by coax cable (or s-video/composite plugs for some cards), so you would have a coax line run to the PC, or a network-capable device, such as the HDHomeRun ( http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun ) - it sends the tv signal over your network.
Since it's cogeco, you will only get analog cable channels, or unencrypted QAM (if they have any)

edit: nvm, the HDHomeRun is digital only - so only if cogeco offers unencrypted QAM channels, will it work in this scenario.

I am guessing that Sailmaker has a cable modem that also serves as a router/switch since he said that it connects to two PCs.

Ahh, OK. Makes sense.
In that case, there would be no TV signal on the home network, a tv tuner card wouldn't do you any good without a new cable line split off for the card.

Wayne has it right, I forgot about the cable modem being in the mix. Duh, hey it is right beside my computer desk. If it doesn't have teeth I would not be aware. :p Oye, so another split off the cable input. Been there, done that many years ago with a ATI All-In-Wonder card. Hmmm, did I eat today?
Thanks folks, as always. sailmaker

sailmaker, be careful splitting the signal to your cable modem. They need more signal power than analog TV. If you have lots of signal power it won't be a problem, but if you don't, it could cause your internet connection to die.

I probably wouldn't split more than 4 ways.. signal loss will be too much.
When we had rogers internet, they installed a dedicated line for the modem, not sure if that's common practice these days.
I'd say the best scenario for internet is to split the incoming line and then split one branch for tv and keep the other branch dedicated for internet.

I picked up a Visiontek TV Wonder 650 pcie card a couple of weeks ago and finally got the ATSC tuner working with Vista 32 Media Center. I have been thinking about adding another tuner, and would like to get another Visiontek, but have read posts indicating that the ATI drivers are not capable of dealing with two 650 tuners. Just wondering I anyone has had any success installing two 650 pcie tuners in the same computer - perhaps using BeyondTV instead of Vista MC.

I'm the one that had problems with two identical 650Pro tuners. I think there are others that had gotten it to work, but for me no. I think it's a bit of a crapshoot.

I recently setup my MCE PC with a Hauppauge Win TV-HVR 1600 tv tuner card connected to a home made folded dipole antenna. With this I can receive analogue OTA channels but not digital OTA channels using the PC's Media Center Edition software.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=804785&postcount=473

Curiously though when I use the included Win TV software I can additionally receive digital OTA channels, albeit only local ones. Does this mean that different TV tuner software programs are better at getting digital OTA channels?

TIA
Paul

Windows/Vista Media Center doesn't support Canadian OTA HD. Peter Nears has an excellent step-by-step guide to enabling OTA HD functionality.

http://thegreenbutton.com/blogs/pnear/archive/2006/11/22/202706.aspx

Thx for the info, I just assumed it would support CDN OTA along with US ones since it starts with asking which country you are in and defaults to Canada. So far I prefer WinTV even though the interface is not as nice as MCE.
Paul

Hi,

I just purchased a Hauppauge HVR-1800 tv tuner. Prior to this I experimented with an antenna on my analog tv and was able to get a few channels. As well, I borrowed an lcd tv and easily picked up a couple of HD channels.

Now I've installed the tv tuner and plugged in my antenna but I am not getting any reception. I'm using Vista Media Center and went through its setup: chose my region (V5N 4L8 - Vancouver), downloaded the guide, told it I was using an antenna. Like I said, there aren't any channels coming in at all. Granted I'm now in a different room, but the difference I would have thought would be small: same level and maybe 20 feet away.

Other than the antenna position I'm wondering if I'm missing anything in terms of setup.

thanks!