Combo vs. Discrete Tuners (ATI 650 or seperate SD and HD tuners)

[dmiraclejr]

I am trying to decide whether to buy one ATI Theater 650 Pro with a single SD and HD tuner combined (only one in use at a time allowed) or a VBox 150(HD) and a Hauppauge 150 (SD). The ATI 650 can be had for about $120-130 and the VBox 150 + Hauppauge 150 would be about $130-$140. If the first ATI 650 worked well in SageTV then I would most likely buy another fairly soon thereafter.

The main reason I'm looking at the ATI 650 is that from the reviews it seems to have much better picture quality than the Hauppauge 150 and that it would save a PCI slot (minor consideration to the saved slot).

Right now I only have a Vbox Cats Eye USB 3560 and want to add another HD tuner and a SD tuner.

I have considered a Nvidia DualTV tuner and a VBox 150 but found out that the DualTV has to either have 2-analog cable inputs or 2 stb inputs. A 1-cable input and 1-stb input configuration is not possible at the same time. I don't know if this is possible with the new Saber 2020 or not (need to check).

Will the ATI 650 work well with SageTV and will it know which tuner is needed at a given time?

Any other recommendations for a guy wanting 2 or 3 HD tuners, a SD tuner for analog cable, and a SD tuner for a STB?

Thanks.

[sniper's_scope]

i'd go with a hd card and a seperate sd card, somtimes combo's don't work as good as using 2 seperate cards to seperate the signal of the 2 formats, though to be honest you can buy sat card with with decoder card connections for recieving cable/sat pay tv transmissions, so may be you should be looking at buying a sat/cable card for those trnsmissions, though you may also reqire a modem for the the phone home features of your service provide to cover the interactive side of your cable/sat service...

don't ask me anything on network broardcasting through a home as i haven't gone to far into it myself to give you an idea on what to do, so that i can't be any help on...

[doublebogey]

Originally Posted by dmiraclejr

Right now I only have a Vbox Cats Eye USB 3560 and want to add another HD tuner and a SD tuner.

Will the ATI 650 work well with SageTV and will it know which tuner is needed at a given time?


Thanks.

I have the vbox 3560, a Plextor 402U, and I recently replaced the WINPVR-150 with the ATI 650. I'm using the 650 for the basic cable, and I believe the picture quality to be better than the 150. I'm using the Vbox for OTA HD, and the Plextor for STB. I'm very happy with the setup.

Phil

[dmiraclejr]

Originally Posted by doublebogey

I have the vbox 3560, a Plextor 402U, and I recently replaced the WINPVR-150 with the ATI 650. I'm using the 650 for the basic cable, and I believe the picture quality to be better than the 150. I'm using the Vbox for OTA HD, and the Plextor for STB. I'm very happy with the setup.

Phil

Do you use the HD tuner of the ATI 650 as a second HD tuner (like having dual HD tuners when the SD tuner is not in use). If so does it work well and know when to use the HD or the SD tuner when needed or when a conflict exists?

[kltye]

I have an Avermedia A180 and the ATi 650 working flawlessly together. Sage recognizes that only one input on the 650 can be used at a time so it doesn't screw up. What I had to do is to put the A180 to have a higher encoder merit than the 650 because sometimes Sage will choose to record HD on the 650, and then I'd be stuck without an analog tuner. So yes, in essence I use the 650 as a secondary HD tuner.

Hope that helped.

[sniper's_scope]

if i was to build hdpc, i would try to use all the same vendor if possible whne it comes to my tuners, though if running a mobo with pci-e or pci-x i would consider using based tuner cards saves alot of space that way..

though i'm not sure if the quads support pvr functions...