[mythtv-users] HDTV Tuner Cards - Please catch me up a few years

Brian Foddy brian at fodvo.org
Sun Sep 12 18:22:22 UTC 2010


I've been a long-time myth user and built 2 multi-system households, but
all with either HD 3000/5000 or Air2PC era cards; all OTA HD in the US.
They generally work good, but still about 1 in 8 recordings will be
blank and no kernel or myth upgrades have ever fixed em.  I've seen it
discussed here before.  Anyone ever found the cause?

Now I need to build up a new backend machine for the folks, they
currently have 2 Air2PC cards, and would like to get a third HD in the
new backend.  Looking at a AMD 240 or so board, but want to get 3 tuners
and most boards only have 2 PCI slots these days.  So I'm looking to
catch up with newer cards and want people's opinions.

1.  I like the idea of the Hauppauge 2200/2250 dual tuner in a PCI-e
slot, but from a little Googling, some complain about poor reception.
Any truth to that?  Are the drivers stable?

2.  The HDHomerun, when they came out, I remember there were some
touting they had superior HD reception.  Is that still true?  Any other
cards of equal reception quality?  The network connection of the Homerun
is doable, but not trivial.  I'd have to put a second network card in
the backend machine or buy a higher end board with 2 networks.

Any other ideas for OTA HD/QAM in a PCI-e flavor, or dual tuners in PCI
flavors?  As you can gleam, reception quality is important as some poor
weather days getting good OTA HDTV can be "challenging" at best.

Thanks,
Brian




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