I'll test analog tomorrow.
For the record mine's an "old" HVR-950.
What does hauppauge's signal monitor identify your chipset as? (in the window caption at the top)

So I tried to do recordings to give quality comparisons, but I couldnt get one tuner to work in wintv or the other to work in virtualdub.
So it's not 100% equal comparison, but what I did notice is:
low signal channels (e.g. 7) are fuzzy with the 950, but mostly watchable. On the 1250, the same channel (both were fed with a splitter simultaneously, with identical cable leads)
was "wavy" and vibrant colours as well as flickering (kind of like how scrambled cable used to be like 10 years ago?) It was pretty much unwatchable.
As for strong signal channels, the analog looked better on the 1250 than the 950. Could've been wintv smoothing things over, however. As I couldnt get both tuners to work with a single program, it's hard to compare directly.

The 950Q has the newer (and reportedly better) XC5000 tuner chip, and a different demodulator chip as well. It's basically a Fusion HDTV7 on a tiny stick, minus the analog mpeg encoder chip.

channel was "wavy" and vibrant colours as well as flickering
If that was digital, then it's not the tuner card's fault. But if it was analog, well.. quite possible (at the mercy of software mpeg encoding -- no hardware chip for that).

Cheers

Yes, both cards are software encoding only (analog). Unfortunately, I can't get the 950 to work with wintv again, or conversely the 1250 to work with virtualdub. If I get it to work, I'll update my results.

Digital is perfect for both (with adequate signal).
Curiously, I split the signal so that both tuners can watch simultaneously and there was little to no change in SNR's - I thought a splitter would decrease it significantly?

Well, a splitter cuts the signal into two, half-strength halves.

But it's the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that matters, much more than the signal strength. So if there was plenty of signal there to begin with (eg. strong station, hi-gain antenna, and/or a pre-amp / distribution amp), then it can be split up a few times before you get down close to the noise floor.

I have to split my signal here 16-ways (two 1:4 splitters back-to-back) before my weakest digital station goes pixelated with the 950Q. But that's with an extremely hi-gain antenna system, and a 20dB ultra low noise pre-amp at the masthead.

Cheers

Yes, but by nature, signal to noise is a ratio of good to bad RF.
Since you're splitting the signal (good) in two, i figured noise would take up more of the other chunk. But then I thought about it, and realized you'd be splitting the noise in half too. Essentially two equal streams of just lower overall power, but same SNR(aside from a slight drop if the splitter inserts a bit of extra noise). :)

Sorry, I didn't want to hijack this thread but someone suggested my question should not have been used to start a new thread, so I have copied my question here. I have been in the market for a tv tuner for the past year or so. I was outbid by 0.50 in the last second on eBay last night on a VistaView Saber Combo Analog/Digital PCI TV Tuner Card, and I notice that the same supplier has the same card on again. I have Rogers HD Cable service with the Motorola 6412 PVR. I live in Central Newfoundland, Canada. I am waiting for some response from Rogers Tech Support on this same question. I have coax going from my computer to my tv room but don't have much idea of what I need and what I can get when I split the cable service between the tv and the pc via a tv tuner card connected by approx 100 ft of coaxial cable. I understand that it is impossible to view the HD channels except OTA. Is that correct? I know there is no HD OTA here. What type of tuner card do I need to receive all the analog and digital channels from my cable box, and what quality of picture can I expect on my computer screen? Thanks in advance for any guidance in this area.

You need an "NTSC" card for the analog, and (probably) an "ATSC QAM" card for the digital. But you'll get only the unencrypted digital channels with that, not anything that is encrypted. Lots of cards do both NTSC and ATSC-QAM.

But on The Rock, I wonder if they bother with encryption? A lot of early digital cable is/was completely unencrypted, except for the really premium channels. Time (for you) to google around and see what you can unearth about that.

If the digital *is* all encrypted, then nothing will work with it other than the set-top boxes from Rogers. Some of those should have decent analog outputs, in quick case most analog tuner cards can be used in dumb capture mode to record from those.

Definitely ensure that your NTSC/analog card has "hardware" mpeg encoding built-into it (as opposed to relying upon a software encoder). The Hauppauge "HVR" series of PCI/PCIe cards generally are a safe bet for analog/digital cable, with hardware encoders. The non "HVR" cards might lack the hardware encoders.

It might also be a good idea to verify that Rogers is using the North American standard ATSC-QAM there, rather than the European DVB-C style of digital cable.

Cheers

Just to add - HVR-1600+ are hardware encoding.
The cheaper 1250 is software encoding, as are the USB ones (HVR-950Q and 850)

The cheaper 1250 is software encoding, as are the USB ones (HVR-950Q and 850)

I will add that the HVR-1950 (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1950.html) USB tuner has a hardware encoder.

I wasn't aware that there was a 1250 USB.. :o
The 1250 PCI-E is the one I was referring to. ;)

I will add that the HVR-1950 USB tuner has a hardware encoder.

Yup. But no XC5000 tuner :(

Hauppauge HVR-1950 USB2:

* TDA18271 tuner
* TDA8295 demodulator (Analog)
* S5H1411 demodulator (Digital)

Yup. But no XC5000 tuner

Nice to know. I had asked earlier what people thought of the HVR-1950, but no one answered.

I misread things earlier. Disregard that last post of mine, lol.

The links from this LinuxTVWiki Hardware page (http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_Devices) give chipset details for various ATSC capable tuners.

It's a pretty good reference, but not 100% up to date (eg. it doesn't have the 2008 EyeTV USB dongle shown, which happens to be exactly the same hardware as the Hauppauge HVR-950Q).

The Hauppauge HVR-950Q is still working spectacularly well for us here, devoted to the one very-distant station that the HDHomeRun units cannot pull in at all (UHF23: WNPI-DT[123]).

The worst time of day seems to be around sunset (close to 5pm here this week), when there's the occasional brief instant of pixelation. Not as bad as the snow we had on analog from time to time, though.

So this tricky stick is a keeper for us.

Anyone need an HDHomeRun dual-ATSC tuner unit? We have two of them here, but now only need one of them! :) PM if interested.
-ml

I recently bought a Hauppauge HVR-950Q from TigerDirect for use in my Mythbuntu 8.10 MythTv media server.

Could not have been easier to setup, just copied the firmware I located on the internet into the /lib/firmware/ folder and modprobe'd the driver.

I concur with the reception, this new tuner beats my old ATI HDTV Wonder hands down. The old ATI tuner was unable to lock to the hardest Buffalo stations here in Toronto (NBC, ABC, CBS), whereas the new 950Q locks on to all major Toronto and Buffalo digital OTA stations.

I have recently overhauled the cable runs from my CM4221 in the attic and have even better reception than last year, now I am receiving Buffalo and the low power Toronto stations like SunTV easily.

I cannot recommend more convicingly that the Hauppauge HVR-950Q is the way to go.

Some notes:
1) The tuner gets hot to the touch, I have mine hanging in mid-air in order to aid cooling. Do not place this thing in a tight spot without air movement, it will get burning hot.
2) Reception is brilliant, as good as the top of the line tuners in my Olevia HDTV's. I can finally record the channels that I have been able to only watch live like NBC.
3) Install on Linux is trivial on the newest kernel in Ubuntu 8.10 (I upgraded all of my Myth front end boxes to 8.10 from 8.04 prior to upgrading the server to 8.10 to ensure things would go smoothly).
4) Tuner co-exists with my PCI tuner fine. Note that the PCI tuner is recognized first by Linux, so the USB will be DVB1 device.

I recently bought a Hauppauge HVR-950Q from TigerDirect for use in my Mythbuntu 8.10 MythTv media server.

[...]

I cannot recommend more convicingly that the Hauppauge HVR-950Q is the way to go.



The HVR-850 is essentially the same hardware LinuxTVWiki (http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_USB_Devices) (XC5000 tuner, AU8522 demodulator) and can sometimes be found cheaper (eg. $39.99 @ FS boxing week) than the 950Q.

But be careful, apparently there are 2 versions of the 850. One is as described above, AU8522 based with the XC5000 tuner (device id 2040:7240), and the other is EM2883 based with the XC3028 tuner (device id 2040:651f). You definitely want the version with the XC5000 tuner.

I'm sure the answer is somwhere on this site but I just couldn't find it.
What channels can I get on Rogers using this card:
AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 HDTV (TV Tuner ATSC/ClearQAM)

Thank you in advance!