I have the HVR-1600 and it works well for me. Since here in Ottawa most stations are still analog only, I needed a card with an MPEG encoder that is supported in Linux. Also, the PC I am using (soon to be replaced) didn't support PCIe, so that further limited my options.

For ATSC, it works well for all the locals except OMNI.2, which many people have been have problems with here. A different tuner may (or may not) help with it, but it will be changing channels next year so it isn't worth worrying about at this point. For distant stations the only one is PBS, but I would need a new antenna and move it outdoors, which my wife vetoed, so that is a non issue for me.

For the remote, mlord was able to get it to work for me by updating the device drivers. The latest MythBuntu release should support it out of the box.

After the analog shutdown, I will look at getting a second tuner and will see what is considered the best one at that point.

I have the HVR-1600 and it works well for me.

Can I ask if your BER and UNC are the same when viewing ATSC signals? (See femon program in the linux-dvb-apps package. Other programs may give similar values.). If they aren't the same what kernel (or driver) version are you using?

Hi!

It's not yet fully stable but Steven Toth just added Analog support to the HVR-2250...

re: http://www.kernellabs.com/blog/?p=1443

Nick

Hoping somebody can answer these questions for me.

I will be getting the aforementioned card soon from Newegg. What I'd like to do is set it up to pickup ATSC stations and also hook it up with my Rogers HD4250 cable box. Is this possible or not? There is only one connector and I'm assuming that it will be occupied by my ATSC connector to the antenna. So could my Rogers box then be connected through the audio/video input connection?

Sorry, tried reading the information over and over again and it just confuses me.

Shawn

PS: If somebody from Whitby, ON can offer assistance as far as where I point my CM 4221HD antenna, that would be greatly appreciated as well.

I will be getting the aforementioned card soon from Newegg. What I'd like to do is set it up to pickup ATSC stations and also hook it up with my Rogers HD4250 cable box. Is this possible or not? There is only one connector and I'm assuming that it will be occupied by my ATSC connector to the antenna. So could my Rogers box then be connected through the audio/video input connection?

Yes, you can connect the HVR-2250 as described, but it will only record programs from you Rogers box in SD. To record programs from your Rogers box in HD, you would need something like an Hauppage HD PVR, but it doesn't have an ATSC tuner for recording programs OTA, so you would need both.

shawn3985, regarding your OTA aiming question just follow these steps to get the info you need:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1082124&postcount=1

Shawn, I think the short answer is yes.
You should be able to record from your STB in SD from the av connectors and also from your antenna in ATSC.
The part i've been scratching my head around this model, is it's got the potential to be a quad tuner (2xATSC+2xMpeg2-hardware encoded SD), but from what I read you could only use 2 tuners at a time.
I didn't specifically read you could use both ATSC and Mpeg2-hardware encoded SD at the same time, but that's usually a given for these kind of tuners.

EDIT: Looks like 2 hybrid tuners, each hybrid tuner being a selectable ATSC **OR** Mpeg2-hardware encoded SD tuner.

I didn't specifically read you could use both ATSC and Mpeg2-hardware encoded SD at the same time, but that's usually a given for these kind of tuners.

It is not a given. As you later said it has two hybrid tuners and thus the same tuner is used to do demodulate either NTSC or ATSC signals. The demodulated signal is then sent to either a NTSC or ATSC decoder as appropriate. By doing it this way, the card only needs to split the signal 2 instead of 4 ways. Each time you split the signal you get about 3.5 dB of signal loss.

Awesome Guys, thank you. I do have one more question. Will Windows Media Center display the Buffalo & Toronto ATSC stations and my Rogers Digital Cable Stations in the guide? Sounds like a tall order but would like to know.

Thanks again

Shawn

Will Windows Media Center display the Buffalo & Toronto ATSC stations and my Rogers Digital Cable Stations in the guide?

I don't know about Media Center, but if it doesn't I know MythTV will.

SageTV also can see the Canadian guide.

canada is a forgotten part of the world for media center

that being said, in the green button forum, there's a very well documented ATSC hack to make it work

Look for Peter Near's multiple listings hack for Media Center.

that's the one I was thinking of

I've been reading lots and I am building a HTPC, I just bough a HDHR from newegg for 92$ they are on sale, my question is:

-if the ATSC tuner is poor , but by being able to stream, the location of this device will mean that my cable lengh is cut nearly in half 100 ft down to 55 ft , should that not help to give me better reception or not?

Thanks

The shorter cable does not improve "reception" - the antenna "receives" the signal and the cable transports its to the tuner. However, during transport, there is always some loss. A shorter cable will decrease that loss.

100 feet of RG-6 at 600 MHz has a loss of 7.57 dB
55 feet of RG-6 at 600 MHz has a loss of 4.17 dB

So you save almost 3.5 dB...

Keep in mind that 3 dB loss is 50% of the RF power. So everything being equal, I would still consider some amplification to have unity gain through your system. I would consider a head-end amplifier (at the antenna - to keep noise down).

Cheers!

Rob

A better way is to use a higher gain antenna and/or lower loss cable. Amplifiers can cause as may problems as they solve, especially if there are strong transmitters nearby.

Thanks for the replys guys,

I have a cm4228 with a cm7778 amplifier on it already, I'm pointing it at the cn tower and get good reception with my LG plasma's ATSC tuner.

Here is the deal, Toronto is 50 miles in front of me , Buffalo is 30 miles behind me and grand island is 6 miles on my right.

So i figured the cm4228 to toronto, I picked up a cm4221 to point to buffalo and after some reading was worried about signal cancelation and figured my best best was to go dual tv tuner card, now I also need to do clear QAM so I need to get a tvtuner card for my HTPC anyways, the SDHR could do clear QAM and my stronger signal and my tv tuner card could do the fringe/toronto.

What would be the best card for this application, I am leaning twords the HVR-950Q or maybe the HVR 2250 but from what I read the 950 is better for fringe reception.

my tvfool link: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d27ee7e7dc1cff8

Of course, the right antenna and optimized placement is always the best approach.

But at 55 feet something like LMR 300 is still 3.23 dB down at 600 MHz - thats still a loss of 50% of power. LMR 400 - you lose 2.08 dB - but thats really expensive cable and even with ultra-flex its difficult to work with. Plus, it has to be terminated on N-Type. You need the right crimping tools and dies to do that properly. In that case, you should hire a professional to do it.

If you're careful with the antenna choice and directing it, most home owners can manage the downsides of a head-end amplifier. I'm in Oakville and have a CM-7788 and when I look at my output on my Anritsu spectrum analyzer, I have no problems

Probably some good questions to ask polox40 is: where are you located? What antenna do you have now? how is it mounted? Are you splitting downstream? (For example, a 1:2 to feed both sides of the HDHR?)

Cheers!

Probably some good questions to ask polox40 is: where are you located? What antenna do you have now? how is it mounted? Are you splitting downstream? (For example, a 1:2 to feed both sides of the HDHR?)But we'll do that in the OTA Forum where those topics belong. :)

polox40, start here: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=125161 and then when we've got you better informed on the OTA reception side of things we'll come back here and work out your HTPC & tuner card issues with you.

rporetti, I hope you'll post your local OTA info in there too! :)