Good card for Freesat HD on PC

Having looked at PVRs I am thinking of progressing my PC build by adding a
decoder.

So - assuming I am running Windows (but could run Linux under VMWare
player) can anyone recommend a PCI/PCIe card which is good for a build-
your-own PVR?

PC has HDMI output but there is space for a graphics card (or two).

A card which does TV and Satellite would be nice, of course, but not
essential.

Also a part of the Freeview and Freesat is the EPG - so software with a
good EPG would again be helpful.

I should have one licence for Windows Media Centre lying around somewhere.

Probably running W7 64 bit.

Cheers

Dave R

On 02/05/2013 14:36, David.WE.Roberts wrote:
Having looked at PVRs I am thinking of progressing my PC build by adding a
decoder.

So - assuming I am running Windows (but could run Linux under VMWare
player) can anyone recommend a PCI/PCIe card which is good for a build-
your-own PVR?

PC has HDMI output but there is space for a graphics card (or two).

A card which does TV and Satellite would be nice, of course, but not
essential.

Also a part of the Freeview and Freesat is the EPG - so software with a
good EPG would again be helpful.

I should have one licence for Windows Media Centre lying around somewhere.

Probably running W7 64 bit.

Cheers

Dave R


I'm not sure what are considered good cards these days, but if you
want everything to actually work, I suggest using DVBviewer Pro as
the software. Not free, but only about 15 quid.
MCE might work better now, but I jacked it in after wasting a few
months of the usual googlingfiddling cycle.
I have 2 sat dishes - a 1.2m motorised and an 80cm fixed (for FreeSat),
both driven via a Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2. Also a dual tuner DVB-T2
card for freeview (Blackgold BGT3620) which is the only DVD-T2 dual
tuner that works with the ****-poor TV signal strength in my area.
I'll tell you now that you aint gonna like the prices of either of
those cards, but others might work OK for you.
--
Rob

On 02/05/2013 14:36, David.WE.Roberts wrote:
Having looked at PVRs I am thinking of progressing my PC build by adding a
decoder.

So - assuming I am running Windows (but could run Linux under VMWare
player) can anyone recommend a PCI/PCIe card which is good for a build-
your-own PVR?

PC has HDMI output but there is space for a graphics card (or two).

A card which does TV and Satellite would be nice, of course, but not
essential.

Also a part of the Freeview and Freesat is the EPG - so software with a
good EPG would again be helpful.

I should have one licence for Windows Media Centre lying around somewhere.

Probably running W7 64 bit.

Cheers

Dave R



http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT31...oducts/BGT3600

"Rob" wrote in message
...
if you
want everything to actually work, I suggest using DVBviewer Pro as
the software. Not free, but only about 15 quid.
MCE might work better now, but I jacked it in after wasting a few
months of the usual googlingfiddling cycle.

What sort of problems did you have with MCE? I've not had many missed
recordings, and I suspect that those that I have had, have been due to late
changes to schedules, so outside the capabilities of MCE :-)

It's nice that the Win 7 version can record subtitles whereas the old DVR-MS
format couldn't record them.

One enhancement would be for it to detect a film that has a news bulletin
break in the middle and needs to be treated as two separate scheduled events
with the same title, whereas with a bit more intelligence there ought to be
some sort of link that says "this is a continuation of the earlier event". I
nearly missed the second half of Harry Brown the other night because Five
had put a news bulletin in the middle and I'd only set it (unwittingly) to
record the first half. Thank goodness for Five+1 and the ability to schedule
it to record the second half from that, having noticed when I did a random
check about half an hour intro the second half on Five. Those +1 channels
have their uses!

On Thu, 02 May 2013 19:07:18 +0100, Enrie Membership wrote:

On 02/05/2013 14:36, David.WE.Roberts wrote:
Having looked at PVRs I am thinking of progressing my PC build by
adding a decoder.

So - assuming I am running Windows (but could run Linux under VMWare
player) can anyone recommend a PCI/PCIe card which is good for a build-
your-own PVR?

PC has HDMI output but there is space for a graphics card (or two).

A card which does TV and Satellite would be nice, of course, but not
essential.

Also a part of the Freeview and Freesat is the EPG - so software with a
good EPG would again be helpful.

I should have one licence for Windows Media Centre lying around
somewhere.

Probably running W7 64 bit.

Cheers

Dave R



http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT31...ctPath=/Shops/
BT3159/Products/BGT3600

Interesting spec.
However:

"I bought this card a few months ago for use in a media centre backend
running Linux, mainly because the BlackGold website claims to support
Linux and supplies the drivers. The card functions under Windows7 with the
supplied drivers, but that's no use to me since I bought it specifically
for a Linux system.

Despite months of effort, eight years Linux experience and two emails to
BlackGold support I can't get this card to work properly. The
documentation supplied with the drivers is poorly written, outdated and in
some places inaccurate. I have not received any kind of response to my
emails to BlackGold support either.

I will never buy another BlackGold product and would urge other potential
customers to stay away, if for no other reason than their abysmal support
if/when things go wrong. "

and

"I've been through 3 of these cards - each of which failed in the same way
after a couple of weeks use - in each case one of the DVB-T2 tuners failed.

I contacted Blackgold who said to return it to them to upgrade some
components - to quote them:

"We have experienced some issues with these cards and we believe that it
may be an issue with out of specification temperatures with some
components.

We would check the card and upgrade if this is the case."

They also said:

"We should be able to turn this around in about 48 hours."

Sent off the card over 5 weeks ago, and heard nothing form them (despite
repeated attempts to contact them).

Update: finally got the card back after 9 weeks. It worked for 24 hours
before one of the tuners failed again. "

These from Amazon, and no balancing 5* reviews either.

For nearly £170 I would expect a bit more reassurance.

Cheers

Dave R

http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT31...ctPath=/Shops/
BT3159/Products/BGT3600

Interesting spec.
However:

"I bought this card a few months ago for use in a media centre backend
running Linux, mainly because the BlackGold website claims to support
Linux and supplies the drivers. The card functions under Windows7 with the
supplied drivers, but that's no use to me since I bought it specifically
for a Linux system.

Despite months of effort, eight years Linux experience and two emails to
BlackGold support I can't get this card to work properly. The
documentation supplied with the drivers is poorly written, outdated and in
some places inaccurate. I have not received any kind of response to my
emails to BlackGold support either.

I will never buy another BlackGold product and would urge other potential
customers to stay away, if for no other reason than their abysmal support
if/when things go wrong. "

and

"I've been through 3 of these cards - each of which failed in the same way
after a couple of weeks use - in each case one of the DVB-T2 tuners failed.

I contacted Blackgold who said to return it to them to upgrade some
components - to quote them:

"We have experienced some issues with these cards and we believe that it
may be an issue with out of specification temperatures with some
components.

We would check the card and upgrade if this is the case."

They also said:

"We should be able to turn this around in about 48 hours."

Sent off the card over 5 weeks ago, and heard nothing form them (despite
repeated attempts to contact them).

Update: finally got the card back after 9 weeks. It worked for 24 hours
before one of the tuners failed again. "

These from Amazon, and no balancing 5* reviews either.

For nearly £170 I would expect a bit more reassurance.

Cheers

Dave R


I wholeheartedly agree about Blackgold customer support......c**p.

On the other hand I have owned two Blackgold tuner cards for use in my
set-up one running in WinXP MC and the other, a BGT3600 in the same
machine running Win 7 MC. Both cards have performed well without
problems, so until someone comes up with a similar card with twin t2 and
twin s2 tuners I would go for another Blackgold card and hope that I did
not have to deal with their customer service department.

On Thu, 02 May 2013 15:10:07 +0100, Rob
wrote:

I'm not sure what are considered good cards these days, but if you
want everything to actually work, I suggest using DVBviewer Pro as
the software. Not free, but only about 15 quid.

Deffo. It just worked for me and I'm sure will continue to work after
I upgrade to a better HD card.

MCE might work better now, but I jacked it in after wasting a few
months of the usual googlingfiddling cycle.

Ditto. I lost patience with the festering heap of ****.

On 02/05/2013 14:36, David.WE.Roberts wrote:
Having looked at PVRs I am thinking of progressing my PC build by adding a
decoder.

So - assuming I am running Windows (but could run Linux under VMWare
player) can anyone recommend a PCI/PCIe card which is good for a build-
your-own PVR?

PC has HDMI output but there is space for a graphics card (or two).

A card which does TV and Satellite would be nice, of course, but not
essential.
V
Also a part of the Freeview and Freesat is the EPG - so software with a
good EPG would again be helpful.

I should have one licence for Windows Media Centre lying around somewhere.

Probably running W7 64 bit.

Cheers

Dave R

I have a Hauppauge DVB-S2 PCI card which I use with DVBviewer which I
can run on W7 or W8 32 bit. Frankly I much prefer my twin tuner Vix
Linux PVR.


--
Michael Chare