Selecting an HD OTA Tuner

[Ted@TNT]

Well, I've been doing some reading and am nearly ready to purchase, but since I couldn't find a solid compilation of current information on the subject, I thought I'd pose this to you hardware guru's out there...

What is your preferred HD OTA card for SageTV in the US?

The SageTV site recommends the following (as well as a few others):
# ATI HDTV Wonder
# AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180
# Conexant CX23883 ATSC based cards
# Dvico FusionHDTV5 Lite
# Dvico FusionHDTV3 Gold-T
# Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold Plus

I've been using the ATI card for the last year. It works for me, but it does seem to really hit my processor hard. Occasionally, I even get stuttering of the playback. I'm planning to have dual cards soon, and I'm concerned that two HDTV Wonders will completely tax the processor and then some!

Are any of these other cards better at this?

Also, I don't know why it wasn't listed, but for a dual-tuner install, would the FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital tuner be a possibility? Admittedly, I'm not sure what DVB-T is, and perhaps this negates the possible application of this card.

Any thoughts, recommendations, warnings, etc. will be greatly appreciated!!

[GKusnick]

DVB-T is an Aussie/Euro HDTV standard. Those cards won't work in the US. If you're going with Dvico, you want one of the ATSC cards listed on this page.

High CPU usage and stuttering during playback isn't usually a tuner card issue, since the tuner card isn't involved in playback. That's more a function of your CPU and graphics card. HD playback is pretty demanding, so make sure you have decent graphics horsepower and 3D acceleration enabled in Sage.

[bcjenkins]

I have 2 OTA tuners in my system.

Fusion 5 Lite and Fusion 5 RT Gold

I am currently running 2 MVPs, 1 client and the server (in service mode but use the "client" aspect to display on RPTV) plus 4 simultaneous instances of SA all on a P4 2.8, 1.5GB RAM, 64K clustered IDE drives. This pegs the cpu at 100%, mostly the SA processes though. I am using nvidia decoders with the same card as you.

B

[JasonJoel]

If you are interested in USB (external) tuners, you can't go wrong with the VBOX 3560's. Cheap too. Excellent tuner sensitivity and reliable.

Work WONDERFULLY. Although I admit I've never tried it in Sage. I know there was another thread saying they work though.

They have Windows MC drivers, and are coming out w/64 bit drivers as well.

Jason Bottjen

[jptaz]

I have 3 of the USB VBOX 3560 that I have been using in SageTV since before December 2005. Only issue I had was bad OTA video streams that do not fastforward or rewind correctly in SageTV.

EDIT:
Actually it has been since Janruary/February that all the SageTV issues with multiple HD Tuners.

Couple things to look out for:

1. Get an external Powered USB 2.0 Hub...These devices draw the full 500ma from USB 2.0 bus and many motherboards can't provide that much power.

2. Make sure only USB 2.0 devices are plugged into the root hub...At least on my motherboard it was a roll of the dice if the root hub would go 2.0 or 1.1 depending on which device loaded first.

John
John

[Ted@TNT]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

DVB-T is an Aussie/Euro HDTV standard. Those cards won't work in the US. If you're going with Dvico, you want one of the ATSC cards listed on this page.

High CPU usage and stuttering during playback isn't usually a tuner card issue, since the tuner card isn't involved in playback. That's more a function of your CPU and graphics card. HD playback is pretty demanding, so make sure you have decent graphics horsepower and 3D acceleration enabled in Sage.

Thanks for the info, Greg, I figured as much with the DVB-T card since I've not heard much about it in the forums.

I suppose I was trying to apply SD principals to HD - and they don't correspond. I know that in the SD world, the Hauppauge is superior to the ATI flavored TV Wonder since they handle more in hardware and ATI is more of a software solution. I think I'd heard before something about the HD streams being much different, but I'd forgotten.

I DID just upgrade the graphics card on my box, and I haven't noticed any problems anymore, so perhaps I'll just get a second ATI card since the first one seems to be working fine.

Thanks again.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Ted@TNT

I think I'd heard before something about the HD streams being much different, but I'd forgotten.

HD, or digital, streams are different, they are broadcast as an MPEG-2 tranport stream (vs analog video). NTSC cards have to digitize and compress the analog video. ATSC cards just extract the transport stream and plop it on disk.

[Ted@TNT]

Thanks, Jason and John, for the information on the USB models. I'd not considered them before, and I'm impressed to see them so highly praised. For purely aesthetic reasons (which include maintaining the WAF), I will persue internal solutions in order to keep the A/V center very clean and simple.

[Ted@TNT]

Originally Posted by stanger89

HD, or digital, streams are different, they are broadcast as an MPEG-2 tranport stream (vs analog video). NTSC cards have to digitize and compress the analog video. ATSC cards just extract the transport stream and plop it on disk.

Thanks, Stanger. BTW, what cards are you using for HD these days?

[stanger89]

I've got an A180 right now.