Tuners, tuners, so many tuners

[Ken C]

OK, getting ready to put together a new HTPC. Probably an Intel Core 2 Duo mb, 2 gig ram, a PCI_Express video card (ATI or nVidia), numerous hard drives. What I'm finding are mb's with only 2 or 3 PCI slots. Currently I am using four Hauppauge 150's and a MyHD 130. Obviously, it's going to be difficult to stuff five PCI cards into three slots.

So, considering this, what combination of tuners would be the best to yield four analog and one HD QAM tuners ? All brand new stuff.

Also,is there a way to split up the analog tuners across multiple machines ? Say, two in the HTPC and two in a server ?

Ken C

[paulbeers]

Yes you can split up your tuners into multiple machines. If you buy two full Sage licences, then one can be used as a "network encoder". A

nother option (which requires spending more money) is to buy dual tuner cards. Nvidia makes a great dual tuner card and my Avermedia Purity MCE500 is pretty darn good (same chipset I believe, with a few differences). Also I believe there is the Sabre 2020 (sp?) that has been mentioned in the forums that is also the same chipset but PCI-express. Another option to is the HDHomerun for QAM tuning for Sage. It is a unit that works off of your network so it doesn't require any internal slots. Might be an alternative for your MyHD. Just my .02 worth.

[ybrew]

I use dual tuner hauppauge 500 cards (I have 3 of them) along with one dual tuner HD Homerun.

8 tuners total. I don't have any conflicts, but I am CONSTANTLY running out of disk space!

[Ken C]

Oh no, I've been moved, bad me !!

RTFM, Appendix G in the SageTV manual describes a 'network encoder'. Is it that simple to install ? Just enable a few properties, open some ports on the firewall, and that's it ?

Ken C

[clmolnar]

I would definitely look into the HDHomeRun for your digital QAM recording. A dual tuner QAM capture device that doesn't take up any PCI slots and doesn't generate any heat in your enclosure is $$ in the bank.

[Polypro]

I'd say get 2 Type A PVR500's and an HDHR.

P

[GKusnick]

People always seem to forget about USB tuners in this situation. USB is a lot simpler to set up than a network encoder, and lets you have as many tuners as you like on one machine. Just remember to use powered USB hubs to drive them, since your mobo probably can't power more than one or two directly.

[Polypro]

Excellent advice!

P

[stevech]

Originally Posted by ybrew

I use dual tuner hauppauge 500 cards (I have 3 of them) along with one dual tuner HD Homerun.

8 tuners total. I don't have any conflicts, but I am CONSTANTLY running out of disk space!

Just curious: do you have a lot of folks in your house to view all these recordings from 8 tuners?

[phenixdragon]

Couple of links for ya
http://www.htpcnews.com/index.php?op...=193&Itemid=29

http://www.htpcnews.com/index.php?op...1&limitstart=1

The 2nd link has some screen shots.

I just switched from 2 PCI Express Theater Pro 550s to the nVidea DualTV and they each have their pros and cons. The 550s was much much sharper in the picture but they seemed to get a lot of static if I barely touched my co-ax into the cards. The DualTV has a less sharp picture but it doesn't ever loose the picture completely to static. Actually I never had even a spec of static now. But there is a real noticable diffrence in PQ.

[jokestr]

Originally Posted by Polypro

I'd say get 2 Type A PVR500's and an HDHR.

P

Got any idea how to get that Type A PVR500? NewEgg is filled with comments talking about RMA's and the bad tuner.

Seems like a dual tuner is a must to prevent multiple splitters and signal degradation.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by jokestr

Got any idea how to get that Type A PVR500? NewEgg is filled with comments talking about RMA's and the bad tuner.

Seems like a dual tuner is a must to prevent multiple splitters and signal degradation.

I heard that hauppuage was going back to typeA production, so everyone probably has typeA unless they have some old stock, so I'd just send some emails or pick up the phone. Ask the people what version PVR-500s they have in stock. When I had the TypeB issue, I called PCalchemy and they said they only had type-b, I called snapstream and they knew about the issue and had just gotten a shipment of typeA's so I ordered from them. They said they would only accept typeA from hauppauge.

A larger company like newegg may be too big to know about that detailed an issue, but a smaller outfit like pcalchemy, snapstream, and also Sage themselves, should have first hand knowledge of what tuner type they have.