Any experiences with ATSC TV tuner cards?

[Colin McGregor]

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>  Long story short... I want/need the most sensitive ATSC tuner
> available for recording TV off the air, without the price getting
> ridiculous..  I currently have a Windows XP based USB external unit.
> It's getting quite old, as is XP.
>
>  I'd prefer something linux-based (obviously).  I can go with either
> standalone or a USB or PCI card and simple software.  I do *NOT* want
> TIVO or MYTH.  I should't need no steenkin SQL database just to record
> an afternoon movie at home while I'm away at work.

Shrug, almost all of my Linux / TV experience has been with MythTV.
Still, I have used the following ATSC digital TV tuner PCI cards with
Linux (and MythTV):

- Hauppauge HVR-1600 - http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1600.html
- pcHDTV HD-5500 - http://www.pchdtv.com/

I am somewhat partial to the pcHDTV HD-5500 card as Linux is a
manufacturer supported OS and Microsoft Windows isn't (I repeat,
isn't) a manufacturer supported OS... The pcHDTV HD-5500 tuner I got
was reasonably sensitive to local ATSC digital TV stations, but I have
heard of some HD-5500's that weren't very sensitive... A non-PCI card
(read PCI-Express) ATSC tuner card I've tried, and liked is the:

- Hauppauge HVR-1250 - http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1250.html

While I have not tried it, the MythTV community give good reviews to
the Silicon Dust HDHomeRun - http://www.silicondust.com/ an external
ATSC digital TV tuner to Ethernet box...

Expect to pay $60 for the HVR-1250 new, the least expensive of the
above options (and has known driver issues with NTSC TV under
Linux...). Several months ago one of the "usual suspects" (read
College/Spadina crowd) was selling the HVR-1600 as a used pull for
$40. The HVR-1600 comes with two built-in tuners (though one of the
two tuners can only do NTSC analog TV) and can tune two different TV
channels at the same time... The HDHomeRun is available in both single
and dual tuner versions. A restriction of the HDHomeRun is that it can
NOT do NTSC analog TV.


Colin McGregor

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> Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
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