Which DVB-T tuner?

[Mithrandir]

I would like some opinions on which DVB-T (freeview) tuner to get.

I am looking at buying one so I can record programmes. another important factor would be the picture quality nd a remote is highly desirable.

There are a couple I have seen: Artec T1 and the MSI Mega Sky 580. Both seem to be same price and offer features that are same.

I would also like to know
1) Does any of these support PIP(picture in Picture) mode?
2) How much storage does every minute of recording take?
3) What file type does the recording create?

many thanks and suggestions welcomed!

mithrandir

[Mithrandir]

Anyone?

[RavenNight]

Okay I have a DVB Compro Videomate T200. its pretty good for the money, failry easy to setup and the remote works a treat (even turns pc on and off). Your questions:

1. Yep also supports mulitple seperate windows at the same time, watching like 8 channels at once is a laugh. Also has the option to make what ypur viewing the wallpaper

2. Each minute is about 10-20mb.

3. The file format is .mpg thats MPEG-II afaik

Hope that helps!

[Mithrandir]

Okay I have a DVB Compro Videomate T200. its pretty good for the money, failry easy to setup and the remote works a treat (even turns pc on and off). Your questions:

1. Yep also supports mulitple seperate windows at the same time, watching like 8 channels at once is a laugh. Also has the option to make what ypur viewing the wallpaper

2. Each minute is about 10-20mb.

3. The file format is .mpg thats MPEG-II afaik

Hope that helps!

Many thanks RavenNight - you're a star

[chinny]

I've got a pair of the Compros in my MCE rig and dual tuner works fine with MCE 2005.
The Compro software limits you to a single tuner but depends what you want to do with it.....

[Funkstar]

They are a bit expensive, but the Nebula cards and software allows you to run multiple tuners in a system. You can also stream to other PCs arcoss a network.

I haven't tried their software lately, i'm waiting until i re-build my PC into a Win2k3 server.

[nvening]

Black gold are rated highly

[kojak71]

DVBt is an MPEG stream, so the bit rate (and therefore size) is set by the broadcaster and not adjustable by the application. So it can be anything between 0.8Gb/hour and 2.2Gb/hour, typically BBC use higher bitrates than the other channels (they have the bandwidth to do this because they don't cram as many channels as they can on their multiplexes).

Choice of tuner comes down to software (hardware wise they are all pretty similar). Nebula is known for it's quality in the software department. Blackgold has been mentioned, but you could consider the Hauppauge DVBt cards. Hauppauge's forum is very active, and they do tend to provide more updates than other manufacturers.

If you are using MCE, then the choice gets limited to the cards around that have appropriate drivers (known as BDA drivers). Last time I checked Nebula don't have such drivers, but Blackgold & Hauppauge do.

DVBt tuners don't do that much, and they tend to record in the format they were transmitted in. In the case of freeview, this means MPEG2. Depending on the application used it might use a wrapper. MCE uses DVR-MS which allows it to add metadata to the MPEG2 file (as well as allowing it to playback the file whilst it's still being recorded to). The good news is that DVR-MS can be quickly changed to mpeg files by using a free bit of software, the resultant file being DVD compliant. Mediaportal (which is free) also uses DVR-MS.

[chinny]

Last time I checked Nebula don't have such drivers, but Blackgold & Hauppauge do.

Nebula do have BDA drivers - available here. The only problem with their card / BDA driver is in MCE if you use standby.
When you come back out of standby the card is "locked" and you need to restart the machine to get it going again.
Against that - the Compro's seem to have a problem with "TV signal not found" after standby -
I'm ok as I've got a pair of cards but know of a couple people with a single card who do miss recordings as a result.
If you do use MCE then you need ot be prepared to invest quite a bit of time getting things right.
On top of that (although a bit off-topic) you need to be careful as to which mobo you use as not all come out of standby successfully.
There is some discussion of the standby issues here.

[kojak71]

Nebula do have BDA drivershere.

I stand corrected. Oops, I forgot to talk about resuming from standby which you are right to point out. The motherboard is the key to this as you rightly put it.