[mythtv-users] Standard cable, QAM, PCHDTV-3000 vs Air2PC

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Sun, 2005-11-13 at 17:00 -0500, Dale Pontius wrote:
> So, the perennial question:  PCHDTV-3000 or Air2PC
> The PCHDTV-3000 has built-in NTSC, which saves me a little money, but
> not that much.
While it is built in, currently with MythTV you can only use the card
as either a HDTV or a NTSC card, but not both.

> From what I understand, the newest rev of the Air2PC (with a new name)
> has a better tuner, but I'm not sure that's important for cable.
I don't know about the Air2PC HD-5000, but the pcHDTV HD-3000 has a 
better tuner for QAM than the old Air2PC.

> I'm likely to stay with cable, since my stations are in multiple
> directions and my wife has already registered her disdain for a rotor.
Depending on your distance from the stations a omni-directional antenna
might work, and since UHF antennas are pretty small (mine is 1 ft long),
you might be able to put up an antenna for each direction.

> When I hear about cable, I hear about QAM.  Why is a cable HTDV signal
> different from over-the-air?
The licenses for the 16-VSB patents are/were more expensive, and many
cable operators were already using QAM-64 and QAM-256 for non-HDTV DTV
by the time they started looking at HDTV. AOL-Time-Warner in New York
was using VSB for a while, but I believe they have switched over to QAM
now.

> I've heard reports of both cards doing QAM, though the PCHDTV seems to
> claim not to do it.  What gives?
The pcHDTV HD-3000 supports QAM. The HD-2000 hardware supported it, but
my understanding is that the pcHDTV folks could not get licensed QAM
firmware for the HD-2000 from the DSP chip maker.

-- Daniel