[mythtv-users] Tuner cards that do HD?
Rod Smith
mythtv at rodsbooks.com
Mon Apr 16 16:52:13 UTC 2007
On Monday 16 April 2007 02:02, Geoff Mishkin wrote:
>
> I use the pcHDTV HD-3000 which I highly recommend.
I couldn't disagree more, particularly for digital cable use. I've got two
pcHDTV 3000s, and neither can reliably tune a digital cable (QAM) signal. At
best, they work for about half an hour when the computer is first turned on,
but then they begin glitching out, until the signal is so degraded it's
unwatchable by an hour or so in. By "unwatchable," by the way, I don't
mean "an annoying video glitch every few seconds;" I mean "the signal is so
bad that you're lucky to get a second or two of clear audio and video every
minute, with artifacts so bad you can't make out what's on the screen for the
rest of the time, and MythTV reports a 1-hour recording is actually 25
minutes long." I've replaced one of these cards with an AVerMedia AVerTVHD
A180, which produces clean digital recordings, although it doesn't have an
NTSC tuner.
This is a known problem with the pcHDTV 3000, but it interacts with other
hardware in the computer, so some people encounter it but others don't. I've
tried swapping quite a few components, and I've tried my cards in two
different computers, with no luck.
For the OP's purposes, too, the pcHDTV 3000 (and I believe the 5500) use
framegrabber analog tuners, which increases the CPU load when recording
analog signals. IMHO, it's better to go with two tuner cards, one analog and
one digital (or more if you want more than that).
--
Rod Smith
http://www.rodsbooks.com
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