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couple of TV card questions

Soldato
Joined
11 Feb 2004
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3,340
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TheWirral
many years ago, about 10 maybe i had an analog tv card on my pc
and even with a roof aerial the quality was a bit pants.

i was just wondering with todays cards would the freeview capable cards produce a decent picture like that of a normal freeview TV ?

my next question is when are the freeview HD cards set for release ?

thanks.
 
Permabanned
Joined
15 Feb 2010
Posts
79
Location
NI
I have had several freeview cards
Avoid the compro ones they are utter poop , Hauppauge ones are great
There are no available HD freeview ones yet , because the gits that designed the format
did not want to have backward compatability :(

I use 2 x Hauppauge Nova-S2-HD (freesat HD comp) and 1 x Hauppage Nova-T 500 (dual freeview)
Cards in my media PC in the living room , I watch on a 50" plasma and the PC gives
a way better picture than the tv's internal freeview tuner (smoothed out much better)
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2004
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13,984
Location
Pembrokeshire
Can pretty much echo dirk's comments.

Although I wouldn't agree on the compro ones being crap, I've used a fair few of them and had no issues.

I think my old Hauppauge cards did have a better quality though.

I've always found that a decent TV card in a PC will 95% of the time give a better picture quality than a TV's built in tuner.
 
Associate
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10 Nov 2009
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1,099
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London
I would have thought that pretty much every DVB-T tuner would give the same picture quality. All it's doing is passing the incoming MPEG2 stream to the PC isn't it? The quality is then governed by what codecs and de-interlacing you use.

I would expect pricier card to maybe have faster channel switching and be more tolerant to a poor signal, but it's not worth the premium Hauppage charge for basic DVB-T IMO.

I use a £40 PEAK Dual DVB-T tuner. Works perfectly with Windows 7, MediaPortal and WMC.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2006
Posts
5,269
Location
Midlands, UK
I agree with dirk and nikebee :)
Compro ones i've used have been fine, T200 iirc is the one my lad is using in his pc right now watching tv via vmce.
Picture quality id really good imho, and thats with my single feed being re-distributed around the house via a loftbox.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Sep 2005
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6,803
Location
UK
I have a Hauppauge WinTV Nova HD S2 and Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT, both of which work with Win 7 MediaCenter, I think the HD S2 is very good and use them almost every day. My area of the UK has not switched over to digital (Freeview) so the digital transmitter is broadcasting @ reduced power, so sometimes, especially where there is a lot of cloud and heavy rain, the picture of ITVs and Channel 4 can suffer, but the Freesat picture is 1st class...
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
11 Feb 2004
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3,340
Location
TheWirral
thanks for the replies chaps.

these dual freeview tuners: do they only require 1 earial input ?
i have vista so can i record in media centre if i chose to ?
does media centre have an epg ?

is therer anything i should look out for in recording quality?
ie mpeg2 the best ?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,027
Location
Pentonville Prison
Some do.. some don't..

I have a Pinnacle PCTV 2000i dual which needs one input
Also a Pinnacle PCTV 3000ix which says it needs one but is happier with two
And a Blackgold BGT3540 which needs one...

"Depends" is the answer ;)
 
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