Anyone got an OTA ASTC tuner for their PC?

What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

On 16 Aug 2006 11:49:47 -0700, "NadCixelsyd"
wrote:

What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

It probably depends on whether you intend to run Linux (or a
variation) or windows. I'm working on putting together a PC dedicated
to DVR service, OTA HDTV recordings, basically using Wes Newell's
recommendations. He's posted a lot, just check the archives.
If you want Windows, then do a google search for "ATSC OTA tuner" and
you'll get lots of places to start. One site I found interesting was
http://dvr.about.com/od/capturetvwit...tp/otahdtv.htm

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

"Charlie Hoffpauir" wrote in message
...
On 16 Aug 2006 11:49:47 -0700, "NadCixelsyd"
wrote:

What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

It probably depends on whether you intend to run Linux (or a
variation) or windows. I'm working on putting together a PC dedicated
to DVR service, OTA HDTV recordings, basically using Wes Newell's
recommendations. He's posted a lot, just check the archives.
If you want Windows, then do a google search for "ATSC OTA tuner" and
you'll get lots of places to start. One site I found interesting was
http://dvr.about.com/od/capturetvwit...tp/otahdtv.htm

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

I have this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815100140

Although there is frequently a rebate on this card, there is none at the
moment. It is a fairly decent card with analog as well as HDTV, although no
QAM capability, and comes with a lite version of BTV and BTV allows some PVR
function. I believe the card is MCE certified but I use XP Pro.

I've had it for several months, but I just got the OTA HDTV functioning a
few weeks ago. With a Radio Shack V90 antenna I can get most of our local
channels in upstate NY that are about 30 - 40 miles away. I also pick up
some VT public HDTV from the back side of the antenna.

If you look at sites like AVSForum, you'll find that the Fusion card seems
to be the preferred card for HDTV and it has QAM capability. The Fusion card
comes with vendor software and it is certified for BTV but BTV will not
support the QAM function.

Wayne

"NadCixelsyd" wrote:

What's a good tuner card for the PC.

Wes is the man on this!

Question tho.... will you be "dedicating" this PC to
use as a "TV"..... or will it do PC duties as well?

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:49:47 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:

What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

EyeTV 500 on a Mac. It comes with great software, too.

"NadCixelsyd" wrote in message
oups.com...
What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.



Call Kei at www.digitalconnection.com
1-800-327-8049
Ask about the MyHD card, works very well for me.

NadCixelsyd wrote:
What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

I have a Jetway (iVogue) which looks like it may be a Kworld. Works
well, but I find the software somewhat crappy. I went with BeyondTV for
the software. It seems to work well.

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:49:47 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:

What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.

Any card that does the job well is a good card. I started like you with a
$150 Dvico Fusion HDTV5 Gold card. I've since sold it and I now have 4 old
Air2PC Rev.02 cards in mine. You can buy these for $25 or less each. They
don't do NTSC, but if I never see NTSC again it'll be too soon, and they
don't do QAM. Since I've never had cable or sat. I couldn't care less
about QAM support either so for me, they are the best you can buy.:-)
For remotes I used these:
http://tekgems.com/Products/tg-pbr.htm
Really really cheap and work great.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:17:32 GMT Wes Newell wrote:

| On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:49:47 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:
|
| What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
| tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
| few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
| like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.
|
| Any card that does the job well is a good card. I started like you with a
| $150 Dvico Fusion HDTV5 Gold card. I've since sold it and I now have 4 old
| Air2PC Rev.02 cards in mine. You can buy these for $25 or less each. They
| don't do NTSC, but if I never see NTSC again it'll be too soon, and they
| don't do QAM. Since I've never had cable or sat. I couldn't care less
| about QAM support either so for me, they are the best you can buy.:-)
| For remotes I used these:
| http://tekgems.com/Products/tg-pbr.htm
| Really really cheap and work great.

Do any of these have the ability to pass the whole raw ATSC bit stream,
bypassing channel extraction and decompression, to the CPU bus? What I
am looking for is a way to backhaul some ATSC bit streams to another
location and I would need a remodulator for that. It would need driver
source code for Linux, or sufficient non-NDA specs to write such driver.
My software would then packetize the streams (probably at least 2, which
supposedly would be from 2 cards), haul them over fiber, and put it all
back together again at the other end.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

On 2006-08-17, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:17:32 GMT Wes Newell wrote:

| On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:49:47 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:
|
| What's a good tuner card for the PC. I hear that some of the older
| tuner cards had problems or limitations so I want to get one that has a
| few features. Anyone got any recommendations? While I'm at it, I'd
| like to make my PC into a DVR in its spare time.
|
| Any card that does the job well is a good card. I started like you with a
| $150 Dvico Fusion HDTV5 Gold card. I've since sold it and I now have 4 old
| Air2PC Rev.02 cards in mine. You can buy these for $25 or less each. They
| don't do NTSC, but if I never see NTSC again it'll be too soon, and they
| don't do QAM. Since I've never had cable or sat. I couldn't care less
| about QAM support either so for me, they are the best you can buy.:-)
| For remotes I used these:
| http://tekgems.com/Products/tg-pbr.htm
| Really really cheap and work great.

Do any of these have the ability to pass the whole raw ATSC bit stream,
bypassing channel extraction and decompression, to the CPU bus? What I
am looking for is a way to backhaul some ATSC bit streams to another
location and I would need a remodulator for that. It would need driver
source code for Linux, or sufficient non-NDA specs to write such driver.
My software would then packetize the streams (probably at least 2, which
supposedly would be from 2 cards), haul them over fiber, and put it all
back together again at the other end.


The linux dvb driver will let you do this easily, so any card that is
supported by the dvb framework will do what you need. If I remember
correctly, you just capture PID 0x2000.