[mythtv-users] Best tuner?

[James Linder]

> On 6 Dec 2020, at 8:48 am, DaveD <mythtv at guiplot.com> wrote:
> 
> I posted a query a while back asking for advice on which tuner has the best sensitivity and got a lot of "get your antenna/signal up", which I have been working on, and have made significant progress.  I'm limited by trees and covenants that limit my antenna(s) to attic installations, but I'm close.  We have reliable recordings MOST of the time, but there are still periods of drop-out on certain channels in certain weather conditions and I am hoping that my old Dvico Fusion HDTV dual tuner card (CX23885 chip) is not up to the task.
> 
> One thing I'm considering is that, being a dual card, maybe it's got a simple splitter that's cutting down the signal.  I'm wondering if a high-sensitivity single tuner unit (card, USB, or network) would be a better choice.  I'm getting enough channels, now, that two tuners is not enough, anyway, so I thought a distribution amp and another tuner for the weaker channels might just get us ready to dump Comcast once and for all!
> 
> For experimentation, I would like to have a portable (USB) tuner I can plug into my laptop.  Any recommendations for a sensitive USB tuner?
> 
> All recommendations, ideas and advice are appreciated.

Dave the advice is cute, but …

Using the same professionally installed and setup external antenna, with the transmitters cica 15Km away several tuners on several backends give similar performance (some pixelation on HD) including dvico pcie and leadtek win tv usb.
I’m getting visibly better results with haupauge dual usb tuners. (just about no pixelation)

Any suggestion that tuners don’t count but antenna does needs a few grains of salt.
Using a bunny-ears to the test backends gives nearly the same performance! The main antenna uses a single type N cable 5 m to roof and he did his setup at the wall socket. The window for s h y t is very small.
James