Newbie again, this time TV tuner.

[joshr219]

I just need a suggestion to a TV tuner card. It either needs to be USB or PCI. Any suggestions?

[tschak909]

For SD: Hauppauge PVR 150/250/500/USB2
For HD: HDHomeRun

don't mess with anything else. Trust me on this (I'm one of the Devs.)

-Thom

[joshr219]

For SD: Hauppauge PVR 150/250/500/USB2
For HD: HDHomeRun

don't mess with anything else. Trust me on this (I'm one of the Devs.)

-Thom

Ok, so taking it as you are a Dev I should use one of those? If I go the SD route will my audio lag? I have a tv tuner card in there now but its ancient and the audio constantly lags and even plays when I'm watching a DVD movie.

[tschak909]

Well, There is latency, this is normal because you're digitizing a signal and then playing it back....

but you won't notice it with this card, because you're not playing back the live audio.. you're playing back the digitized audio.

Why would this matter when watching a DVD movie? This is a tuner input card, and is only used when digitizing video from your cable box, vcr, or other legacy A/V device. The DVD functions are handled at the media director itself.

-Thom

[joshr219]

Well, for me to get audio thru the TV card, I must plug it into the MOBO. When I am just scrolling through stuff(videos, pics, etc.) i can hear the TV audio. Its wierd.

[tschak909]

You won't do that with the cards I listed.

-Thom

[Afkpuz]

Yeah, that audio problem is from a cheap tuner card.  I had that happen with an older card I used.  Basically, when you stop the video from your card, the audio doesn't shut off.  I use the pvr500 mentioned earlier and it's great.  Has mpeg encoders on it, so my cpu doesn't take the load of transcoding.  Highly recommend it

[joshr219]

Yeah, that audio problem is from a cheap tuner card.  I had that happen with an older card I used.  Basically, when you stop the video from your card, the audio doesn't shut off.  I use the pvr500 mentioned earlier and it's great.  Has mpeg encoders on it, so my cpu doesn't take the load of transcoding.  Highly recommend it

Thanks for the help guys! I'm really new to all this and I have a list for when I need to get to get the box up and running well. Where is the best place to buy one of the Hauppauge?

[tschak909]

They're all currently discontinued due to the digital TV transition, you'll need to search google and ebay at the moment.

We will support the Hauppauge HD-PVR once the driver becomes more stable.

-Thom

[joshr219]

They're all currently discontinued due to the digital TV transition, you'll need to search google and ebay at the moment.

We will support the Hauppauge HD-PVR once the driver becomes more stable.

-Thom

Oh ok. Is the HD PVR the HVR? I think I'm just going to wait it out until the HD driver becomes more stable. Thanks for th help!

[tschak909]

_NO_ it is not.

and, honestly, that would be silly...We do not know when the driver will be complete.

*hmm*

-Thom

[joshr219]

Thanks for the help!

[Afkpuz]

Well, remember that it is only the free, over the air tv that is switching to digital.  If you pay comcast for regular tv, you will not need a digital converter box.  They will still send the normal cable signal through your cable wire.  So, standard definition capture cards will still work after 2009.  The way they are marketing this, they make you think that all tv is going digital.  This is a shameless marketing ploy.  so, if you have a cable subscription, you can still use haupauge cards.  You can buy them at newegg.com.  They only sell hybrid cards now, but they still work with NTSC (Analog).

[joshr219]

Ok, I've searched high and low for the 150,250 and 500 and can't find them!

Would any of these card work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000380047%2050001772%201685342847&name=Hauppauge

[Afkpuz]

the 2250 does not have a linux driver.  Checked on the mythtv website http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_HVR-2250

1800 looks like it would not work, unless you can recompile the kernel.  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppage_HVR-1800

the 1600 will work in mythtv 0.21, but I can't remember which version LMCE uses.  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_HVR-1600

1250- digital only.  Same thing: works in 0.21.  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_HVR-1250