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

[William Powers]

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Brian Foddy <brian at fodvo.org> wrote:
> 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?

I ran a slave backend with a couple of Air2PC cards in it for about
four years and I don't think I had more than one or two missed
recordings the entire time.

> 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.

Not sure if you want to go this way, but in a recent thread
("Recommendation for motherboard") a socket 775 Gigabyte motherboard
with five PCI slots was recommended by others.  It even has the full
ICH10 complement of six SATA ports.  Combined with an inexpensive, low
power socket 775 cpu (Celeron 430, E3300, etc.) and a VDPAU capable
graphics card, that should make a fine combo box.

> 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?

Sorry, can't really comment.  There used to be a wiki page for it,
which I have read, but unfortunately it seems to have been deleted for
some reason.

> 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.

I get excellent reception from my HDHomerun, but then I'm only 25
miles from the main Houston, Texas antenna farm with an eight bay
Channelmaster bowtie antenna.  I honestly can't say which cards /
tuners would be better.  I'm not sure what you are driving at with
your comment about the network connection.  My HDHR just plugs into
the same network switch as backend box.  You can even assign it a
static IP if you don't want to go to the trouble of setting up a DHCP
server for it.  After years of occasional ivtv driver stability
issues, I've become a big fan of the remote, network tuner concept.

Good luck!

Bill