DVB-T on Vista Ultimate 64bit

[mcgin]

Right I've just upgraded my PC to Vista Ultimate 64 bit and I'm sick of the useless Terratec 2400i card I have so I'm going to ditch it for something else. The question is what is best.

I'm looking at the WinTV-NOVA-T-500, but want to be sure it will work with Media Centre in 64bit Vista. Anyone have any experience with this card in that environment or can suggest a card worth trying out?

[tman]

Firstly, why 64-bit? What is it going to offer you over 32-bit other than poor driver support and application compatability problems? I'd wait for 64-bit until you're actually going to get some real benefits from it. It currently makes no sense for a home user.

Secondly, the 2400i (with the right driver) is actually a very good card. I've been using one for about 10 months now in XPMCE, and it's been rock solid. Apparently the Vista driver for this card is stable and reliable.

[mcgin]

I went with 64 bit because my processor is 64 bit. I guess since there are obviously considerable driver issues I can swith to 32 bit.

You say that the 2400i is stable with the right driver. I've never had it running stably on XP MCE. What driver were you using?

[tman]

All of the current gen Intel/AMD chips are still 32-bit, but with 64-bit extensions, allowing 64-bit O/S's to run. Unless you *absolutely* require a 64-bit O/S (with huge memory support), I would highly recommend re-installing the 32-bit version of Windows. It will save you a LOT of grief. In a few years when 64-bit support has matured, and manufacturers release side-by-side 32 and 64 bit drivers, it might be worth it, but not yet.

As for the 2400i driver, I run the '260' build for XPMCE alongside the NVidia PureVideo decoder. I use the integrated 6150 chipset on the Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo. This combination gives be glitch free DVB viewing with DXVA h/w acceleration. Works very reliably, and is also fine coming out of S3 (unlike some others). I was running the NV 81.98 drivers for a long time, which were widely recognised as being the best for MCE, but switched to 93.71 a few months ago, and they've been fine. I'm going to be trying Vista in a dual-boot setup soon, and have heard that the 32-bit Terratec Vista drivers for the 2400i are actually very good. NV drivers for Vista is a different matter. A lot of people are saying stick with the Windows drivers as they are ok.

[Cable Monkey]

I will second the comments about 64 bit. It really is largely pointless using it unless you have a specific need for the benfefits(?) of 64 bit. Virtually no commercial software takes advantage of it, drivers need to be written specifically and so lack the maturity of NT based 32 bit drivers, and in some cases there are no drivers at all! I have tried both 32 and 64 bit and am happy enough to have the 32 bit on my main machine. 64 bit can wait!

[Stiggy]

Originally Posted by mcgin

I'm looking at the WinTV-NOVA-T-500, but want to be sure it will work with Media Centre in 64bit Vista. Anyone have any experience with this card in that environment or can suggest a card worth trying out?

Yes, the Nova-T-500 works fine with Vista x64 now.