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Thread: TV Card advice

  1. #1
    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    TV Card advice

    When it comes to TV tuner cards I know very little. I'm after one for use with Mythbuntu and after my research, I've learned some/lots don't play nice with Linux. Obviously the first place to check is the compatibility guide but, err, there's a few there. Any recommendations for good cards? If you need to know anything else, feel free to ask, I'm not really sure what's relevant.
    Thanks

    Edit: Oh and I should mention, it should preferably be a half-height card since it will probably be going in a flat HTPC case.
    Last edited by watercooled; 27-02-2011 at 03:03 AM.

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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: TV Card advice

    I know what I would recommend for MediaPortal on Windows, but no idea about linux these days, although I suspect it's a lot easier than when I last tried it.

    The Nova-T 500 is a good card. Dual tuner, widely used because it is Hauppauge and half height. I have two in my box.

    I would have recomended the Peak Dual Tuner that can be found on Amazon for about half the price of the Nova-T 500, but it isn't on that list.

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: TV Card advice

    Thanks very much, I'll do some reading into those cards. I don't think that is a exhaustive list of cards, so the cheaper one might work.

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: TV Card advice

    What's the deal with USB tuners? Something like this is half the price and apparently supported under Linux.

  6. #5
    blueball
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    Re: TV Card advice

    Quote Originally Posted by watercooled View Post
    What's the deal with USB tuners? Something like this is half the price and apparently supported under Linux.
    USB Tuners I have used (only a couple) had very poor image quality compared to PCI/PCIe cards. Maybe things have changed in the few years since I tried them but I run a PCIe Hauppage card now and the picture is much better.

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    (evil grin) ehhhhhhh's Avatar
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    Re: TV Card advice

    I don't know about linux compatibility but it's best to go with a higher end model.

    The cheap ones tend to miss a lot of channels.

    I had a Compro tuner which costs around 25 quid but I had many problems with it.

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    Re: TV Card advice

    Quote Originally Posted by blueball View Post
    USB Tuners I have used (only a couple) had very poor image quality compared to PCI/PCIe cards. Maybe things have changed in the few years since I tried them but I run a PCIe Hauppage card now and the picture is much better.
    Apparently, the Nova-T is a USB tuner card with a USB-PCI bridge anyway.

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    Re: TV Card advice

    That's right. This isn't a concern for Linux, but under Windows, a single PCI card cannot have more than one tuner, this is a limitation of the BDA driver system for digital TV cards. To get round this, Hauppauge stuck a USB controller on a PCI card and then attached two tuners via USB. That way the dual tuner card works under MCE and other Windows based media centres.

    PCIe doesn't have this limitation as a single physical connector can be split into multiple logical cards, so a dual tuner PCIe card just pretends to be two single tuner PCIe cards as far as BDA is concerned.

    Missing channels will be a result of a weak signal and a tuner that isn't very sensitive. You won't have individual channels missing, you will have entire MUX's (Multiplexes) missing.

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    Re: TV Card advice

    Ahh, interesting. I was wondering why they did that.

  14. #10
    blueball
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    Re: TV Card advice

    I also had a compro and it didnt like Win7 which is why I went for the Hauppage. I know you are going Linux but just FYI the card I have is this one.

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    Re: TV Card advice

    Quote Originally Posted by Funkstar View Post
    Missing channels will be a result of a weak signal and a tuner that isn't very sensitive. You won't have individual channels missing, you will have entire MUX's (Multiplexes) missing.
    My TV and a happuage TV card has all the freeview channels and all of them are stable....the cheap TV card got only 6 CHs and the reception was very unstable

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