PC Satellite Tuner

Buceph

What's the deal with PC satellite tuners? We're getting satellite installed soon, and the plan is to get the PC hooked up with one of the satellite tuners available and record shows using that. Is there anything I should know (pitfalls, etc.) about it? What card would you recommend?

watty

I have 6 satellite cards. They are a hobby rather than a sensible Domestic TV solution.

I'd recommend a Humax Foxsat HDR or a Panasonic HDD + BD player/recorder.

Buceph

watty wrote: »

I have 6 satellite cards. They are a hobby rather than a sensible Domestic TV solution.

I'd recommend a Humax Foxsat HDR or a Panasonic HDD + BD player/recorder.

I don't see how they'd be of use. I don't want a PVR. I'm looking for something to plug into a PC and watch/record from that.

Mr McBoatface

At a minimal you should get a DVB-S2 device which runs on BDA drivers.

Your budget, system specs and OS detail would be useful to know. To be honest this forum would be better suited for your question - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643. This card discussed in the HTPC section looks promising - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055950548

PS - The pc solution can be very time consuming to set up isn't always easy, one persons good advise and good experiences could be another persons hell.

Buceph

Cheers.

I'll ask in there.

snaps

Once set up though, Media HTPC's are great. They play near enough anything you throw at them, once you get a wireless mouse thats all you need to control everything from.

Only downfall side for me is the noise from the fans sometimes can be annoying.

watty

Mine's in the attic. Years ago when it had 9 x 10,000 rpm SCSI drives, the bathroom visitors thought they had somehow entered an aircraft.

slave1

9 SCSI's geeesh, putting one together at the minute, 6 1.5TB drives and a 60gig SSHD, must have been a beast for 9 drives to fit in

watty

2 x cases.
with 1 x Ultra SCSI LVD cables between them.
2 x Ultra SCSI buses. 4 drives on bus and 5 drives 2nd bus

Anyway this single USB 2.0 dual DTT tuner at under €30 inc postage from UK (no shocks of customs or VAT) in less than week seems a good addon for existing satellite dual tuner media PC etc.
http://www.techtir.ie/reviews/mobidtv-dual-usb-dtt

As with Satellite card for HD, having good Graphics card and HDMI is the most important bit.

Buceph

watty wrote: »

As with Satellite card for HD, having good Graphics card and HDMI is the most important bit.

Does it have to connect over HDMI? I was planning on putting it through the DVI from the graphics card, simply as my monitor doesn't have a HDMI connection.

This is really only for watching a bit on the PC system, and recording. Not really a full HTPC solution.

mossym

Buceph wrote: »

Does it have to connect over HDMI? I was planning on putting it through the DVI from the graphics card, simply as my monitor doesn't have a HDMI connection.

This is really only for watching a bit on the PC system, and recording. Not really a full HTPC solution.

nah DVI will work fine as well...HDMI is more specific to tv, but if you are using a monitor DVI or displayport will work just fine

watty

Only "perfectly fine" if 50Hz not some other refresh rate and you have decent de-interlacing.

mossym

watty wrote: »

Only "perfectly fine" if 50Hz not some other refresh rate and you have decent de-interlacing.

No-one mentioned perfect , and those apply to hdmi just as readily as dvi in fairness

rlogue

On the other hand a properly set up HTPC provides a one box solution to TV watching, provides a PVR and allows wireless streaming of SD channels on any pc hooked up to the home network.

Not an out of the box solution but I would not dismiss it as a hobby.

watty

It's a fun hobby, if that's your hobby

I just spent all day getting various Linux TV stuff not working. It's improved a lot. Basically you need to research in advance and only buy already compatible HW.

XP is fairly good with the right 3rd party SW and BDA drivers.

watty

mossym wrote: »

No-one mentioned perfect , and those apply to hdmi just as readily as dvi in fairness

no, HMDI is MUCH more likely to do 50Hz (needed). Majority of DVI only have a minimum of 60Hz. Having to de-interlace is annoying, frame rate conversion is horrible.

mossym

watty wrote: »

no, HMDI is MUCH more likely to do 50Hz (needed). Majority of DVI only have a minimum of 60Hz. Having to de-interlace is annoying, frame rate conversion is horrible.

if he's using a pc monitor then the FRC is likely unavoidable as the display will likely be 60Hz+, dvi will carry 50Hz just as happily as HDMI depending on what you hook it up to..

mossym

watty wrote: »

It's a fun hobby, if that's your hobby

I just spent all day getting various Linux TV stuff not working. It's improved a lot. Basically you need to research in advance and only buy already compatible HW.

XP is fairly good with the right 3rd party SW and BDA drivers.

agreed, it can be infuriating at times, but it's very rewarding and when you finally get it all working it's great....then you try to add something new and start all over again

watty

mossym wrote: »

if he's using a pc monitor then the FRC is likely unavoidable as the display will likely be 60Hz+, dvi will carry 50Hz just as happily as HDMI depending on what you hook it up to..

CRTs very often can be set to 50Hz on any interface. But many LCDs will lie. Even if they claim to accept 50Hz, 75Hz etc, very often the LCD panel frame rate converts to 60Hz. Sometimes this is worse than your PC doing it.

I have a very large 19" 4:3 CRT running at 1920x1080p@50Hz, with height adjusted for 16:9 aspect. At desk sitting distance it's totally fabulous compared to any LCD / Plasma. I think my living room needs a triple DLP projector (no evil light wheel with rainbow artefacts) and a zoom lens

My graphics card can do 2 x DVI 1920x1080i @ 25fps/50Hz fields, sadly the CRT doesn't like that, though it works for a while with bad shading...

mossym

watty wrote: »

CRTs very often can be set to 50Hz on any interface. But many LCDs will lie. Even if they claim to accept 50Hz, 75Hz etc, very often the LCD panel frame rate converts to 60Hz. Sometimes this is worse than your PC doing it.

I have a very large 19" 4:3 CRT running at 1920x1080p@50Hz, with height adjusted for 16:9 aspect. At desk sitting distance it's totally fabulous compared to any LCD / Plasma. I think my living room needs a triple DLP projector (no evil light wheel with rainbow artefacts) and a zoom lens

watty if you can find a crt pc monitor with a dvi in then fair play to you...:)

In the OPs case, it will work over DVI, which i assumed was his main concern. for his benefit, what we're now discussing is how well it will work.

watty

mossym wrote: »

watty if you can find a crt pc monitor with a dvi in then fair play to you...:)

In the OPs case, it will work over DVI, which i assumed was his main concern. for his benefit, what we're now discussing is how well it will work.

It's got VGA.

Using DVI to VGA adaptor. Which is likely not really an adaptor.

I presume the Graphics card has analogue (really VGA signals) and serial on the DVI, as "real" DVI is serial streams, and VGA is a bit like SCART, except up to 2500 x 1500 or so resolution (oddly you need 2 x DVI for much higher than HD in "pure" DVI).

So really the quality depends on the Real "native" capabilities of DVI Monitor and Graphics card. A European TV that has HDMI, will do 50Hz (Most USA models only 60Hz, though some 24Hz), and most LCD/PLASMA made for PC market (with DVI, Display Port or VGA) don't actually do 50Hz natively, even if they accept it from Graphics card. In that case 6OHz may work better, but not as well as native 50Hz.

mossym

watty wrote: »

It's got VGA.

Using DVI to VGA adaptor. Which is likely not really an adaptor.

true, i should have said a crt with a DVI-D input, most DVI on graphics card these days is DVI-I, if not DVI-D only.

watty

It's a fairly old card now. Never lived up to ATI hype on using it to speed up "ENCODING".
X1600

Not as limited as my laptop GeForce 4 440Go 32Mbyte Mobile card