Analog boards not for sale any longer

[sfisher]

I have a box with 2 Hauppauge PVR 500s for the past few years. one of the boards has lately been a little less than optimal so I figured I'd get a replacement from Hauppauge.

This is the e-mail I just received back:

Thank you for your online order for the WinTV PVR-500MC. Due to the FCC ruling, Hauppauge is no longer allowed to sell analog TV tuner boards which the WinTV PVR-500 is. We will have a digital dual tuner board available in late June, called the WinTV- HVR-2250. The cost will be $169.

We apologize for this inconvenience but it is out of our hands.

Sooo... What's the plan? If cable isn't switching to all digital clearQAM and will still be outputting analog for the basic 60-100 channels then isn't there a problem building new systems and maintaining old systems that need new boards?

Assuming Road Runner (does anybody know RR's plans?) switches to clearQAM does that mean you don't need 4 STBs and can just use the QAM boards like the Analog versions to tune in the channels?

Anybody making XP compatible dual channel QAM boards? I only have 2 slots available and after having 4 dedicated tuners for a number of years, I'm not looking forward to having to go back to two.

This WinTV- HVR-2250 that they refer to seem to be a hybrid board, that may be a stop-gap, assuming SageTV assimilates it quicklly, but still I think at best I'll come up with approximately 2 channels instead of 4 after spending $340 - guess it maybe time to start planning a new box with more slots.

Anybody want to elucidate on my ramblings and fears?

[Fluffdaddy]

[Paul H]

You can still get them on Ebay!

[CollinR]

Buy it somewhere else, these will still be available for a while. The PVR500 will disappear first though.

Also the brand new HD PVR has no tuner at all! Nothing prevents them from making a 4 or 8 encoder SD S Video/Composite card.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sfisher

I have a box with 2 Hauppauge PVR 500s for the past few years. one of the boards has lately been a little less than optimal so I figured I'd get a replacement from Hauppauge.

This is the e-mail I just received back:



Sooo... What's the plan? If cable isn't switching to all digital clearQAM and will still be outputting analog for the basic 60-100 channels then isn't there a problem building new systems and maintaining old systems that need new boards?

It's not that they can't sell analog tuners, it's that they can't sell tuners without digital capability. Basically means everything's going to be hybrid going forward.

Assuming Road Runner (does anybody know RR's plans?) switches to clearQAM does that mean you don't need 4 STBs and can just use the QAM boards like the Analog versions to tune in the channels?

Frankly, I wouldn't expect cable companies to move to clear QAM, however if they were to transition the current analog channels to clear QAM then yes, you'd be able to tune them directly with a QAM tuner.

Anybody making XP compatible dual channel QAM boards? I only have 2 slots available and after having 4 dedicated tuners for a number of years, I'm not looking forward to having to go back to two.

HD HomeRun.

This WinTV- HVR-2250 that they refer to seem to be a hybrid board, that may be a stop-gap, assuming SageTV assimilates it quicklly, but still I think at best I'll come up with approximately 2 channels instead of 4 after spending $340 - guess it maybe time to start planning a new box with more slots. [/QUOTE]

The 2250 is a dual-tuner board, Hauppauge already has single tuner hybrids available.

http://www.hauppauge.com/PDFs/Hauppa...tuner_PCIe.pdf

[sfisher]

Originally Posted by Paul H

You can still get them on Ebay!

yes, but the PVR 500's had a run of noisy boards when they changed tuner manufactures on it. So I wanted to make sure I got a good one.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's not that they can't sell analog tuners, it's that they can't sell tuners without digital capability. Basically means everything's going to be hybrid going forward.

I'm pretty sure its really that you cannot import analog TV tuners and all existing inventory must be marked with a warning label stating the device has no digital tuner.

Since nobody makes this stuff in the US and you can't import them either...

The encoder is all we will really need to care about.

This was really designed to protect the TV consumers but I guess it applies here as well.

[sainswor99]

I think stanger's point was that analog tuners will still be available for some time; you just will have to buy a hybrid card with an analog tuner AND a digital tuner. Since no-one makes a three (or more) tuner card (that I'm aware of), this essentially eliminates the possibility of getting more than one analog tuner on a card.

Hauppauge should have suggested a hybrid card to the OP, as well as touting their new dual digital card.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by CollinR

I'm pretty sure its really that you cannot import analog TV tuners and all existing inventory must be marked with a warning label stating the device has no digital tuner.

There's a subtlety to what I said that's easily missed. It's not that you can't make/sell analog tuners anymore, it's that you can't make/sell analog only tuners.

So you can't make sell PVR 500's anymore, but you can make a "hybrid" dual-tuner card. You'll still be able to buy analog tuners, you'll just have to buy them in the form of a hybrid solution, instead of an analog-only one.

Originally Posted by sainswor99

I think stanger's point was that analog tuners will still be available for some time; you just will have to buy a hybrid card with an analog tuner AND a digital tuner. Since no-one makes a three (or more) tuner card (that I'm aware of), this essentially eliminates the possibility of getting more than one analog tuner on a card.

The 2250 is a dual-tuner hybrid card,

"The WinTV-HVR-2250 has two complete on-board analog and digital TV receivers, which allow users to watch and record two NTSC, ATSC or clear QAM digital cable TV programs at the same time"

I read that as it has two hybrid tuners, meaning you can tune two channels at a time and either can be analog or digital.

Hauppauge should have suggested a hybrid card to the OP, as well as touting their new dual digital card.

It is a hybrid card.

[JREkiwi]

The thing to remember though is that all these new hybrids HVR-2250 and HVR-2200 are PCI-e cards, so they're not just a straight swap for a PVR-500.

They do have 2 hybrid tuners, each tuner can record any of the supported inputs (analog and digital) unlike the HVR-1600 which has 2 different tuners (1 digital and and 1 analog).

John

[mayamaniac]

So the new hybrids HVR-2250 has 4 tuners in one? Two analog Mpeg2 encoders and two clear QAM tuners right? If so, that is pretty sweet for one PCI-E slot.

[Narflex]

You can get one here still:

http://store.sagetv.com/Merchant2/me...tegory_Code=HD

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

So the new hybrids HVR-2250 has 4 tuners in one? Two analog Mpeg2 encoders and two clear QAM tuners right? If so, that is pretty sweet for one PCI-E slot.

Not quite. It has 2 Hybrid tuners. Each Hybrid tuner can record NTSC/ATSC/QAM, so you can record a total of 2 of any format with the card.

John

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Paul H

You can still get them on Ebay!

This is the answer.

If eBay still has Apple ][ and TRS-80 computers for sale, then you'll find analog Hauppauge tuners for years (decades!) to come.

Robert

[schill]

My understanding is that the analog components of the 1250 and 2250 cards do NOT have hardware mpeg2 encoding. So, with a 1250 you'll be able to get two analog tuners, but at the expense of CPU time.

[CollinR]

I dunno but I know I can buy a 16 channel 480fps hardware capture cards with no end in sight. The problem is none of them are setup for stereo audio and they cost much much more. I foresee someone modifing the software to allow for 32 channels of audio but I do not know of one.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

Hauppauge should have suggested a hybrid card to the OP, as well as touting their new dual digital card.

Originally Posted by stanger89

I read that as it has two hybrid tuners, meaning you can tune two channels at a time and either can be analog or digital.

It is a hybrid card.

Sorry, been away for a while; I meant to post "suggested a CURRENT hybrid card to the OP, ". Just one of the customer service things that bug me; they should have listed not only the upcoming option, but also what was currently available.

[jakep_82]

Originally Posted by schill

My understanding is that the analog components of the 1250 and 2250 cards do NOT have hardware mpeg2 encoding. So, with a 1250 you'll be able to get two analog tuners, but at the expense of CPU time.

If you read the PDF that was posted it very clearly states that the 2250 has dual hardware MPEG-2 encoders. So no, it won't cost you any CPU. But it does require a PCI-e slot which may not be possible on older machines.

[schill]

Originally Posted by jakep_82

If you read the PDF that was posted it very clearly states that the 2250 has dual hardware MPEG-2 encoders. So no, it won't cost you any CPU. But it does require a PCI-e slot which may not be possible on older machines.

Sorry, I didn't read the pdf. I'm very glad to hear this.

When I emailed support at Hauppauge (a month or two ago), I was told that neither the 1250 nor 2250 had hardware mpeg2. Maybe whoever responded wasn't familiar with the 2250 since it isn't out yet.