Not sure which brand of tuner to buy.

[jal]

I'm considering replacing my Hauppauge PVR-150 with a new tuner because it won't pick up HBO.

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a brand that seems to work well with SageTV. My setup is simple - I don't even have a cable box. I just have a cable outlet on the wall. I don't need a radio tuner nor even a remote control. Just the ability to record shows on my PC (Comcast digitable cable). I want to spend $100 or less.


Also, I'm not sure if it's best to go USB. I've got plenty of PCI slots, but if I ever buy a PCI-Express computer, will the old PCI cards work in it? I figure USB will work in any machine.

My other tuner (WinTv-1600) provides over-the-air tuning plus QAM content.

[GKusnick]

I don't think you're going to find a solution for recording premium channels like HBO without a set-top box. Such channels are typically encrypted by the cable provider, so you need the provider's box to do the decryption.

What most people are using for this is the Hauppauge HD-PVR connected to the component outputs of your provider's STB. If you don't need to record in HD, you can get by with your PVR-150 connected to the STB's S-Video output (plus an IR blaster to change channels on the STB).

[jal]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I don't think you're going to find a solution for recording premium channels like HBO without a set-top box. Such channels are typically encrypted by the cable provider, so you need the provider's box to do the decryption.

What most people are using for this is the Hauppauge HD-PVR connected to the component outputs of your provider's STB. If you don't need to record in HD, you can get by with your PVR-150 connected to the STB's S-Video output (plus an IR blaster to change channels on the STB).

Thanks for the info. I honestly wasn't aware of all that. Interestingly my 1600 card tunes the HBO quite well. But half the time SageTV tries to use the PVR-150 to tune HBO, and then it doesn't work. I'll probably buy another 1600.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jal

Interestingly my 1600 card tunes the HBO quite well.

That surprises me. Are you sure it's not some temporary promo deal?

If it's just a question of stopping Sage from trying to use the 150 for this, you can do that by using a separate channel lineup for the 150 and disabling the channels it can't get.

[jal]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

That surprises me. Are you sure it's not some temporary promo deal?

If it's just a question of stopping Sage from trying to use the 150 for this, you can do that by using a separate channel lineup for the 150 and disabling the channels it can't get.

Thank you! The channel lineup sounds like a great solution. I was too dumb to think of that.
And you're right, it could be a promo deal, but it seems to have been around too long for that. At first I ignored HBO because the darned PVR-150 wasn't getting the sound ( I assumed that HBO wasn't part of the free package given by my apt complex). Then one day I happened to tune to it at a moment when SageTV applied the 1600.

I telephoned Comcast in the past (though it was before I knew I could get HBO) and they reassured me that any cable I'm getting is part of a free package purchased by the landlord. I get a zero-balance statement from them every month.