HTPC TV cards advice

Off to uni a week Saturday and obviously to save space i'm going to do without a TV and just fire a TV card in my PC instead.

Now, having freeview and a remote would be a bonus othan than that i'm open for suggestions.

Are WinTV cards still generally considered the best?

 

Nothing Pinnicle, pile of crap. My bro has a DVB one, cant remember the make but it isnt Hauppauge, decent card but needs a good signal.

 

I think (for just Freeview) Nebula get that award, but they also cost more by a fair bit. List here. I was going to get the WinTV Nova, but then Tesco made me an offer I couldn't refuse on a STB...

 

The Nebula cards are by far the best out there. It can be a little hit and miss with the Hauppauge cards, the software isn't amazing and the drivers have real difficulty being installed on certain computers. I've had about 3 WinTV cards and ended up selling them all because they were crap.

The WinTV PVR2 USB that I have now though seems to work great, though it gets rather hot...

 

The Nebula is not as good as everyone makes them out to be, they were streets ahead but they are now being caught up with BDA drivers and 3rd party software (quite a few of them are free). The latest beta shows promise but there are loads of bugs and its near full release. The next promising feature is recording each channel on a mux seperately which is good for example it could be possible to record bbc1, bbc2 and 3 all at the same time on one tuner but not possible to record say bbc1 and itv1 at the same time with one tuner due to them being broadcast on two different muxes.
Also their support has become slow to respond, compared to what they used to be, mind you tv card manufacturers are rather poor at providing support.
I have 5 tv cards and 4 of them are hauppauge and the other is the nebula. I have 4 running in one pc using www.gbpvr.com and this is used more than the nebula, infact the nebula is hardly turned on.
If you want a cheap freeview tv card and want 3rd party support then look at the compro dvb-t200 it can be had for £40 and with an application called HIP you can use the remote in 3rd party applications if you think the compro software is pants (many ppl do).
If you want usb look at the wintv nova-t usb2 which can be had for £60 from pc world and has BDA drivers for windows MCE.
One last thing stay away from avermedia products unless you like pain and ****** support.

 

I'm liking the look of that gbpvr program. Would I be right in saying that is compatible with the compro dvb-t200? Looks like a nice and tidy card and would suit me just fine.

 

Just remember that if you do not get freeview, you'll need a fair bit of power going to the aerial because basically the TV card doesn't give enough power to get a clear signal (unless of course you are staying next to a tv mast )

 

really useful thread this, im also going to be after a budget digital tv tuner in the next month.

that gbpvr software looks good, ill have to have a play with it on my media pc once i get back to uni.

im also interested in anyones experiences and views on the compro dvb-t200 as it looks right in my budget.

 

visit www.tv-cards.com for peoples view on the dvb-t200, if you decide you don't want to go for that then there is the nova-t by hauppauge which is £50 from pcworld (well it was the last time I checked) and this is used by many people including me.

 

Hauppage and Avermedia both make some pretty great cards for the money, not quite as overpriced as the premium paid for Nebula. I've heard almost no complaints about either brand.

For the record, the Bit-Tech HTPC setup that you're about to see me reviewing software on has an Avermedia dual-tuner card, and that was by my request.

 

damn rite, they suck big time, but ive heard that happuage pvr-150 and higher are supposed to be quality cards, my 2 cents

 

I ended up purchasing the compro dvb-t200 and bought a stand alone digital aerial for use at uni and it doesn't pick up any signal! Aparently the area doesn't officially recieve digital but people in the halls opposite have freeview. Quite annoying!

 

indoor aerials are not the best at picking up signals, a booster might help but I doubt it. Get one from argos and take it back if it doesnt help. Also try progdvb (free) it displays the signal strenght in the software

 

Computer Shopper have a recent review of some cards hereabouts, they like a £55 Twinhan Ter D+A I've not come across before.

Anybody used one?

However, comment from Vadim,

 

I wouldn't touch avermedia with a bargepole, unless you want poor software with cruddy support mind you that can be said for a lot of tv card manufacturers.

 

My bro's got an avermedia dvb-t card and we found 1 driver out of half a dozen that worked and the software is sketchy to say the least. But, it DOES work and im not inclined to mess about with it cause itll likely break.

Just bought a blackgold dvb-t card from fev on here so ill let you know how that turns out

 

blackgold's are teh dogs nads!

not that i'm biased or anything

 

If you do go Hauppauge don't whatever you do install and use their WinTV application, quite simply it doesn't work. I was ready to throw the card out given the non-existent reception when I found and downloaded DScaler that magically managed to pull some reasonable reception out of the card.

TV cards in PCs still have a LONG way to go, even with a main aerial in a good signal area the picture quality leaves a lot to be desired. This coupled with the fact that most manufacturers couldn't write a Spot the Dog book let alone a complex driver set required to drive a TV card and you have a less than wonderful user experience.

 

Why not stick a copy of MCE on your machine and just use a MCE compliant card?

 

^^^^ al la fev way.. i don't use anything else for my media now except MCE2005