TV Tuners! (Fun for everyone)

[theKevin]

My household is silly and antiquated and we only have basic non-digital cable. No cable box, no interactive cable menu, no DVR, and only channels 1-99.

So, I'm thinking about getting a TV tuner PCI card for my personal enjoyment. I want to be able to, basically, have a DVR on my PC, with watching live TV, and recording programs and fastforwarding through commericals, ah la TiVo. I'll be watching this on a PC monitor, so no need for a silly Media Center set up.

What's a good card and software to get? I don't really need a crazy HD set up or anything, I just plan on plugging the coaxial jack into the back of my PC rig. My current Windows resolution is 1600x1200 on a 21" Widescreen LCD. I'd like the video to look decent with a decent size.

[ARogan]

Media Center and an HDHomerun. Internal TV tuner cards are so 2 yrs ago.

[theKevin]

Whoa, HDHomerun does look neat.

Edit: Though I'd probably just get SageTV instead of installing Media Center.

[Reldan]

I use a Hauppauge HVR-950. They recently released the 950Q which apparently can decode QAM (what cable channels use). It works fine for me.

I've heard good things about the HDHomerun though. Haven't used one myself.

[Machfive]

Can the 950Q decode QAM in MCE2005, or does it require Vista and/or Hauppauge's crappy WinTV applibortion?

I just went through a nightmare with an AverTV M780, which has beta QAM support in MCE2005, which didn't end up working for me. Their AverTV app could tune it, but it lacked the awesome EPG of MCE, so no scheduled recording = no sale.

[Ezdaar]

I have a Hauppage PVR 150 or whatever the old model with only one tuner is called. It works great. On the software side I have Beyond TV from Snapstream, it also works great. Well worth the $60. You can probably get a tuner and software from snapstream.com for $100 or so.

[Igor Muravyev]

MythTV + PVR-250 here.

The only problem is that the analog TV quality is pretty much crap.

[ARogan]

for the record I have 3 X pvr-250's, 1 X pvr-150, fusion hd 5 gold, and a HDHomerun.

for basic analog needs the pvr-250/150's work just fine. They are very reliable cards. But if you've got good QAM support in your area (or even good ATSC reception) HD Homerun is definitely the way to go. Stay away from the fusion. It's a complete POS compared to the hdhomerun.

If you want full coverage I would go with one or two hdhomerun's (depending on how much HD coverage you want) and maybe one pvr-150 (250's are pretty hard to find these days) for analog coverage.

[Ezdaar]

It also looks like there is a new Hauppage card, the HVR 1600 with two ATSC/QAM tuners. Might have to upgrade.

[Machfive]

Yes, but does the HVR 1600 support QAM via a non-Hauppauge software? That's friggin critical because WinTV is shite.

At least as of 3 weeks ago, only one device could decode clear QAM via MCE2005 or Vista, the HD Homerun. Only one device was in beta for MCE2005 and Vista QAM support, and that's the AverTV M780.

[ARogan]

Yeah the HDHR MCE hack works pretty well. I was able to get both QAM tuners working just fine with MCE 2005 and also with a Vista Ultimate box. Just follow the instruction on their site. It's not too hard. On top of that HDHR supports a ton of other third party stuff, VLC, and has an API/source code you can code against. If they added analog support it would truly be the one tuner to rule them all. Also, you can't beat the ease of installation. Having something external is just so darn convenient. You can fire up VLC on any machine on your network and hit the HDHR.

I really want to pick up another one but the price hasn't moved in the last year. Still it's a pretty good value for what you are getting.

[Venture]

I'm hoping someone can answer a total noob question about HDHomerun. I have a TV in my upstairs office, without a cable box attached (i.e. the cable plugs directly into the back of the TV). Will HDHomerun get all the channels I can get on that TV? I primarily watch a sports channel on that (Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia), and want to be able to record shows to a computer I have downstairs via HDHomerun, and then stream them to the office TV with XBMC.

[Aleck]

I have an even more noob question than Venture: is QAM what I get with my basic digital cable package that my cable box "decodes"? I have a nice MCE2005 set up right now with dual analog tuners, but I'd love to be able to add an HD Homerun and watch the high def channels that my analog tuners can't receive.

Also, does anyone know if MCE2005 plays nice with both a homerun and an analog tuner, or is it a "one or the other" situation?

Aleck

[Kevin J Baird]

QAM is basically the digital cable signal. If the cable signal isn't encrypted, a QAM receiver will get the channel for you. If it is encrypted than you need a box or a cable card.

[Gendal]

The HDHomeRun is worth the extra money. It's almost easy to setup, especially with MythTV, and it's been very stable. Having tried numerous other solutions from external usb to PCI cards I felt the HDHR was the only one worth the money. Definitely the least amount of headaches. The PVR250 was an old work horse for me but it's hard to beat the pure digital signal of the HDHR if you can get QAM working.

[ARogan]

I just bought my 2nd hdhomerun. It's nice having 4 tuners now.

As far as qam yeah what Kevin said. I think by law they have to at least broadcast the OTA channels in clear QAM. If you get additional channels then it's just gravy.

Try this to get a rough idea of what is available in your area. QAM availability differs from provider to provider and often different even within different parts of the city on the same provider:
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/hdhomerun/channels
This wasn't an exact match for me but it was close.