Recommend me a Dual Digital DVB-T Card

Huggy

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Hi,

Looking for one for my father-in-law's pc. Budget is c£40. I have a Nova T-500, in my htpc, which is fine, but liked the fact the Compro VideoMate Vista T750F comes with a remote.

Can't tell if it really is dual digital, or just analogue and digital. Anyone with any experience? Alternatives?
 
In order to do a bit of testing I ordered on of these and am awaiting delivery.

This was actually recommended by a dev from MP and from what I have read it seems to be pretty well thought of. Will let you know how I get on but figured that dual DVB-T for the price of a single cheap tuner has to be worth a punt
 
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Interesting recommendation - good reviews from purchasers. Would like to hear your views. When will you be getting it, because I probably need to order within the week.

I have since discovered that the card I suggested is only analogue and digital not dual digital - so no use.

Thanks
 
Interesting recommendation - good reviews from purchasers. Would like to hear your views. When will you be getting it, because I probably need to order within the week.
Ordered on Saturday so hopefully should be with me within the next few days :D
 
I've used a Pinnacle 3010ix in the past with no problems. It's a PCI-express card.

Dunno if you can still get them though. Mine's been in the loft since getting a dual DVB-T/S card.
 
Interesting recommendation - good reviews from purchasers. Would like to hear your views. When will you be getting it, because I probably need to order within the week.
Turned up today and not extensive but I have done a bit of stress testing with recording, standby etc and it seemed to eat everything I threw at it.

Not really a recommendation based on several months of getting to know the card but it seems to be doing pretty well so far :thumbsup:
 
Hi,

Looking for one for my father-in-law's pc. Budget is c£40. I have a Nova T-500, in my htpc, which is fine, but liked the fact the Compro VideoMate Vista T750F comes with a remote.

Can't tell if it really is dual digital, or just analogue and digital. Anyone with any experience? Alternatives?

It is dual: that's one digital tuner and one analog one. The remote sensor goes into the tuner card and I never bothered to get it working: I bought a windows remote (usb sensor) from maplin. The card packed up after 2 years.
 
I got this one a couple of months ago:
Scan.co.uk: KWORLD DVBT PC160-2T PCI dual DIGITAL TV Tuner and capture

I've been quite happy for £35. Only needs one aerial lead (I did see some that needed 2!).

It seems to play happily with windows 7 media center, but I can't say whether it'd work well with anything else. A big plus for me is that the pc still wakes up and goes to sleep quickly - within a couple of seconds usually (again I've seen people say that some cards can have big problems with that).

Oh - it does come with a remote but I already had one I liked so haven't even unwrapped the remote it came with.
 
I got this one a couple of months ago:
Scan.co.uk: KWORLD DVBT PC160-2T PCI dual DIGITAL TV Tuner and capture

I've been quite happy for £35. Only needs one aerial lead (I did see some that needed 2!).
I belive this is actually the same card as the Peak one (*). Got mine from a seller on Amazon for £29.99 but I notice they only have one left and have bumped the price to £39.95 since Saturday :eek: (no longer listed on sellers actual site either so not sure if this is another card that is going to dissappear)
 
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Huggy

I tried both Pinnacle & Compro, but thought they were poor quality, and they both broke very quickly. Ended up with Hauppage.

Also the remotes which came with the other cards were very unresponsive, and the software clashed in one way or another with either WMC or computer standby settings, so settled for MS remote and it's been rock solid. Down side is you have to put the receiver somewhere. However, it's got a wide range of vision so can be tucked back, even if not out of sight. Actually looks quite smart anyway.

rucyj
 
I've heard a couple of other mp users talking about the peak card. jameson_uk do you know if it is like the nova t500 which is a usb card on a pci bus or a proper pci card. The nova t500 gave me nothing but problems with standby because it was essentially a usb card.
 
I've heard a couple of other mp users talking about the peak card. jameson_uk do you know if it is like the nova t500 which is a usb card on a pci bus or a proper pci card. The nova t500 gave me nothing but problems with standby because it was essentially a usb card.
I believe it did install some USB hub thing when I plugged it in so I guess it is (did not watch install too carefully though)

Machine is set to record all sorts of crap tonight (including three things at once at one point...) with hopefully lots of sleeps in the middle. Will see how the cards code in the morning.
 
Yh would be interesting to see how it handles sleep, before I had to restart the tvservice and set a 30 second delay otherwise the tvcard wouldn't work. Kind of annoying having to wait for minute while the pc resumes, restarts tvservice and then mp. My current pcie card works soon as I resume so if this did that it would be in my shopping basket:)
 
Hi,

I've been using the KWorld PC160-2T for a few weeks now and it works well. It is a USB device on a PCI card and I have been able to get my HTPC containing it to sleep and wake OK - with a bit of tweaking of course.

It comes with a remote, but I could not get it to work with 7MC.

I think it's a good value card :thumbsup:

Dave
 
Yh would be interesting to see how it handles sleep, before I had to restart the tvservice and set a 30 second delay otherwise the tvcard wouldn't work. Kind of annoying having to wait for minute while the pc resumes, restarts tvservice and then mp. My current pcie card works soon as I resume so if this did that it would be in my shopping basket:)
TVService delay is set to 0. Last night machine recorded about 15 programs with five sleeps in between. 100% success.

Going to do a similar thing during the day today but signs seem good.

One thing to mention is that I always close MP Client as I have had a lot of issues with that causing problems on resume.
 
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TVService delay is set to 0. Last night machine recorded about 15 programs with five sleeps in between. 100% success.

Going to do a similar thing during the day today but signs seem good.

One thing to mention is that I always close MP Client as I have had a lot of issues with that causing problems on resume.

That's good news. I ordered one last week but haven't yet installed it my PC as the new quiet PSU I fitted was extremely quiet - it was DOA! I'll be using the card in WMC7 alongside a Nova S2.

Jameson, what is the PQ like? Some people on the Amazon reviews state it's not as good as their set top boxes.
 
Hi,

I've been using the KWorld PC160-2T for a few weeks now and it works well. It is a USB device on a PCI card and I have been able to get my HTPC containing it to sleep and wake OK - with a bit of tweaking of course.

It comes with a remote, but I could not get it to work with 7MC.

I think it's a good value card :thumbsup:

Dave

Shame it is a USB device. What's your resume fom standby time like with Windows 7 and 7 MC? How long does it take say from switching back on to getting Live TV?
 
I belive this is actually the same card as the Peak one (*). Got mine from a seller on Amazon for £29.99 but I notice they only have one left and have bumped the price to £39.95 since Saturday :eek: (no longer listed on sellers actual site either so not sure if this is another card that is going to dissappear)

Well it's good news it works, but this brings it into the same cost ballpark as the Nova 500. Looks like you use Media Portal. I use 7MC. Interested to hear what you time from resume to Live TV (or whatever the Media portal equivalent is).
 
Yh would be interesting to see how it handles sleep, before I had to restart the tvservice and set a 30 second delay otherwise the tvcard wouldn't work. Kind of annoying having to wait for minute while the pc resumes, restarts tvservice and then mp. My current pcie card works soon as I resume so if this did that it would be in my shopping basket:)

Agreed, this is my big beef about these cards. I would love to find one that resumes from standby to Live TV in just a few seconds.
 
Only £10 more for a normal TV service works for me. Do you know if this works just as well with 7MC?
 
Shame it is a USB device. What's your resume fom standby time like with Windows 7 and 7 MC? How long does it take say from switching back on to getting Live TV?
Running XP still :rolleyes: but not had a single issue so far with USB devices. Longest delay I have is actually my amp switching over. Resume from standby takes a few (possibly 10) seconds and then I have to load MP and start TV. I will time it tonight when I get home but is certainly not that long

Jameson, what is the PQ like? Some people on the Amazon reviews state it's not as good as their set top boxes.
Not sure... this is one thing on my list but I have enough issues and not enough time...

I have never actually used the DVB-T tuner in my TV and always gone through the PC. With this card I now have a spare aerial lead (had two plugged into my Pinnacle 7010ix) so will plug that into TV and tune it in tonight.

My very first thought was that PQ was not great and the Hauppauge Nova-T stick I picked up last week was better but I plugged that in and it was the same. I think the real reason was watching low bitrate SD TV on a 42" screen and sitting about a foot away from the screen :rolleyes:

What people often consider PQ (particularly for SD material) is not so much the actual quality but more the de-interlacing capabilities of their hardware (which is poor on many GPUs).

Might be the weekend but I will get round to doing some comparisions...
 
Well,

After much deliberation, I've ordered this:

Eclipse Computers - Product Details

Cheapest dual digital DVT PCI Express tuner out there and Crazyfool seems fairly happy with it. It's cheaper than a Nova 500-T and with a PCIE interface so hopefully it will work nicely.

Thanks all!
 
Well,

After much deliberation, I've ordered this:

Eclipse Computers - Product Details

Cheapest dual digital DVT PCI Express tuner out there and Crazyfool seems fairly happy with it. It's cheaper than a Nova 500-T and with a PCIE interface so hopefully it will work nicely.
Make sure once you have got it settled in you add some details to this thread (for a while real feedback on TV cards has been a little lacking)
 
Well,

After much deliberation, I've ordered this:

Eclipse Computers - Product Details

Cheapest dual digital DVT PCI Express tuner out there and Crazyfool seems fairly happy with it. It's cheaper than a Nova 500-T and with a PCIE interface so hopefully it will work nicely.

Thanks all!
Hopefully mine wasn't a fluke lol. But yeah it solved all the issues I've had with standby and is ready to use soon as the pc is. I used the drivers on the disk which were a little old but the site was down. They worked fine for me although I think newer drivers are out. Let us know how you get on with it. I've only used it with mp so it will be interesting to see how it works with 7MC

@jameson_uk do you have tvservice set to restart on resume? I had to do that for my t500 but my current card doesn't need it, not doing it saves a few seconds or resume time so I just wanted to know.
 

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