Upgrade Tuners?

[gibsonpa]

I have been using a pair of Hauppauge 1600 for recording OTA HD...for the last 3 or so years. They have been working very well...except for a few "halt detected" errors/system messages every now and then.

My plan is to upgrade my Sage server and I am curious if there is any technical benefit to upgrading to a single Hauppauge 2250.

Seems like it would be a simpler solution having one PCIe card instead of 2 PCI cards...and not having to split my cable for two inputs, etc....but not sure if there is any technical benefit.

Also, my new server will have 6gigs of ram....thought I remembered reading some issue with Hauppauge drivers and 4+ gigs of ram...any tips would be great. My current Hauppauge drivers for the 1600's and my hd-pvr work fine with 4gigs.

[KeithAbbott]

Personally, if you are talking OTA, I would go with a single HDHomeRun with dual tuners. There's a great deal on these right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-005-_-Product

Less expensive than a 2250, plus it connects via ethernet, so it does not use any PCI or PCIe slots. Also, you may be able to locate it physically closer to your antenna, which should improve the signal.

[gibsonpa]

KeithAbbott

That is a good suggestion. I have always been a little worried about the HDHR in my setup...only because I am using 4 extenders for viewing....and thought maybe having 2 inbound OTA shows coming to my server on the 100mb ethernet..and having up to 4 outgoing shows over the same ethernet could be a bottleneck. Not sure there is any real issue with that type of activity...but was not sure.

I will check them out again. If anyone has experience with and HDHR and 4+ extenders...that would be helpful as well.

[KeithAbbott]

I'm also very happy with my 2250s. I don't think you could go wrong either way.

As for the HDHR, your signature doesn't say what speed your server NIC can support. If it can support gigabit, using a gigabit switch should remove the bottleneck. The connection between the server and the switch would be gigabit, and between the switch and the individual HDHR/extenders would be 100mb. The maximum bandwidth needed for the HDHR should be around 40mb, and the maximum bandwidth needed for each extender should be less than that.

[gibsonpa]

Thanks Keith...I am going to look into a giga switch!

[KeithAbbott]

One more thing, make sure that the cable between the server and the switch is cat5e or better, if you just use cat5 cable the connection will remain at 100mb.

[gibsonpa]

Thanks for the tip...I will check. I found an 8 port dlink giga switch on newegg for $32...after instant rebate. Seems like a good deal.

[KeithAbbott]

I have several of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833156251) at home, they run very cool, and have a nice metal case. I used to use Netgear giga switches, they ran pretty hot. I don't have much experience with DLink switches...

[KeithAbbott]

An even better price ($25) on the Trendnet 8-port giga switch:

http://www.buy.com/prod/trendnet-teg...210680814.html

[gibsonpa]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Personally, if you are talking OTA, I would go with a single HDHomeRun with dual tuners. There's a great deal on these right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-005-_-Product

Less expensive than a 2250, plus it connects via ethernet, so it does not use any PCI or PCIe slots. Also, you may be able to locate it physically closer to your antenna, which should improve the signal.

Keith, I took your suggestion and ordered this...$79 seemed like a good deal. It is setup and working perfectly. Thanks!

[KeithAbbott]

Glad to hear it, that was a great price. $10 less than the deal that I had previously gotten, and I thought I got a pretty good deal...

[barney B.A.]

Why not continue to use the 1600's if they are still working great. Since you ordered an HDhomerun, now you will be able to record 4 ota streams.