[mythtv-users] Tuner Suggestions ?

[Greg]

On 03/12/2012 02:08 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 17:39, Greg<greg12866 at nycap.rr.com>  wrote:
>>    I have a pvr-150 that seems to be getting old and the picture is
>> grainy.. I have tried to re-seat it,and make sure all the cables are
>> tight and contacts are clean...Nothing seems to improve it... I am
>> looking to replace it..
>>     We still get analogue from my cable company,are there any duel cards
>> available that work?
>
> Thanks to the FCC, there are no longer any "new, in production"
> analogue only cards available for sale in the US (you might find
> some in surplus stores or on the usual auction sites).  There are
> a number of dual analogue/digital cards available, depending on
> what types of slots you have in your computer.  There are also
> some external USB units.
>
> SInce your email suggests you have TimeWarner as your
> cableco, a cablecard device will not be especially useful,
> but you may find that those channels that TimeWarner is
> sending in analogue are also available in clear QAM, making
> a digital card a possibility.
>
> I would check out the MythTV wiki for a list of the supported
> analogue cards:
>    http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Analog_Hardware_Encoder_Cards
> and digital cards:
>    http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Digital_Tuner_Cards
>
>
> In my experience, the PVR-xxx series suffered from failures
> due to (probably excessive) heat in my case.  I presume one
> or more of the caps used for tuning changed values sufficiently
> to prevent a reliable lock on the channel(s).  I kept one alive
> for another year or two by shifting it around to have better
> airflow (at least some variants of the cards got very hot, the
> caps were too hot to touch).  Because the effect of the heat
> is cumulative, the used cards are going to be a crap shoot.
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>
Thanks Gary, Yeah,TW is the pits....Verizion has been stringing fibre on 
my road for FIOS,so I am hoping I can soon dump TW... The only channels 
I get in the clear are the must carry ones...If we do get FIOS, I will 
try one of the cable card solutions..
  You are more than likely right about the caps,this one has been in 
service for about 5 or more years...

Thanks again