HTPC - TV Tuner Reviews
by Jarred Walton on December 7, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
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Installation Procedures
There were a few topics that were so similar among the cards that we wanted to combine them. For all three of these cards, installing the hardware is a relatively simple process. Open the PC, insert the card, plug in the USB receiver, and power up the PC. You can connect or disconnect the coaxial cable at any time without any problems, though most people will probably only want to do that once.
There may be differences in the suggested order of installation. FusionHDTV recommends installing the software before the card, while MyHD apparently needs the card installed before the software installation will fully complete. We managed to get all three cards installed and running using the same process.
First, we installed the hardware prior to installing the software - and we'd recommend downloading the latest software version before proceeding, if you haven't already. After that, turn on the PC and ignore the "Windows has found new hardware" prompts - cancel them. Run the installation utility, and after a few configuration steps and a reboot, you should be done. (You might also get some "This driver is not WHQL certified" warning messages, which you would also ignore. If WHQL certification is important to you, both the MyHD and Fusion5 do not have it.)
After the hardware/software installation, you need to configure the software for your location. We've covered most of this in the individual card reviews, but we wanted to talk a bit more about the channel scans.
The QAM channel scan turns up a couple hundred channels, many of which are unusable (i.e. encrypted). Out of the numerous channels detected, only about 35 are interesting to most people. All of the encrypted QAM channels can be deleted, as there is no way to watch them. For FusionHDTV, the encrypted channels are clearly indicated. For MyHD, any digital channel that shows a black screen with 0x0 as the resolution and at least a 64% signal rate is almost certainly encrypted.
As is typical of most cable lineups, the remaining channels consist of a lot of junk that you probably don't want, along with the interesting channels. While the analog channels are where you find them normally on your cable box, the digital channels are scattered about on sub-channels in no apparent order. If you get rid of the channels that you know you don't want, you'll probably have 50 or fewer digital channels left to sort through.
To determine the channel lineup, I set the TV to split-screen mode, with the Comcast cable box output on one side and the PC output on the other. (Dual monitors can accomplish this same thing, and you can also reference channel lists on TitanTV or some other site if you recognize the shows.) I chose to get rid of the shopping channels along with any channel that didn't display any content. For the remaining channels, the channel surfer in me had a workout, as I'd tune the card to a channel and then scan through the channels on the Comcast box to find a match. Once a match is found, at least with MyHD, you can label the channel as something more meaningful, like "104 - ABC HD". You might also consider writing them down on paper for future reference - this would definitely be useful when "training" TitanTV on the MyHD card.
While it takes a while, the ability to decode QAM is great for people like me. In fact, you can even connect this card to a standard cable signal and decode the HD as well as the free digital channels, without having anything more than a basic account. (This is assuming that the cable company doesn't put a filter on your line for analog-only subscriptions, which varies by cableco and area.) You might even find a few channels that don't normally show up, though that's subject to change over time. (Watching these "unauthorized" channels also seemed to be one of the factors leading to crashes with FusionHDTV. I could apparently get other subscribers' On Demand movies on at least five or six channels.) FCC regulations require cable companies at minimum to carry the free OTA content, though, so those at least will be available.
There were a few topics that were so similar among the cards that we wanted to combine them. For all three of these cards, installing the hardware is a relatively simple process. Open the PC, insert the card, plug in the USB receiver, and power up the PC. You can connect or disconnect the coaxial cable at any time without any problems, though most people will probably only want to do that once.
There may be differences in the suggested order of installation. FusionHDTV recommends installing the software before the card, while MyHD apparently needs the card installed before the software installation will fully complete. We managed to get all three cards installed and running using the same process.
First, we installed the hardware prior to installing the software - and we'd recommend downloading the latest software version before proceeding, if you haven't already. After that, turn on the PC and ignore the "Windows has found new hardware" prompts - cancel them. Run the installation utility, and after a few configuration steps and a reboot, you should be done. (You might also get some "This driver is not WHQL certified" warning messages, which you would also ignore. If WHQL certification is important to you, both the MyHD and Fusion5 do not have it.)
After the hardware/software installation, you need to configure the software for your location. We've covered most of this in the individual card reviews, but we wanted to talk a bit more about the channel scans.
Click to enlarge.
The QAM channel scan turns up a couple hundred channels, many of which are unusable (i.e. encrypted). Out of the numerous channels detected, only about 35 are interesting to most people. All of the encrypted QAM channels can be deleted, as there is no way to watch them. For FusionHDTV, the encrypted channels are clearly indicated. For MyHD, any digital channel that shows a black screen with 0x0 as the resolution and at least a 64% signal rate is almost certainly encrypted.
As is typical of most cable lineups, the remaining channels consist of a lot of junk that you probably don't want, along with the interesting channels. While the analog channels are where you find them normally on your cable box, the digital channels are scattered about on sub-channels in no apparent order. If you get rid of the channels that you know you don't want, you'll probably have 50 or fewer digital channels left to sort through.
To determine the channel lineup, I set the TV to split-screen mode, with the Comcast cable box output on one side and the PC output on the other. (Dual monitors can accomplish this same thing, and you can also reference channel lists on TitanTV or some other site if you recognize the shows.) I chose to get rid of the shopping channels along with any channel that didn't display any content. For the remaining channels, the channel surfer in me had a workout, as I'd tune the card to a channel and then scan through the channels on the Comcast box to find a match. Once a match is found, at least with MyHD, you can label the channel as something more meaningful, like "104 - ABC HD". You might also consider writing them down on paper for future reference - this would definitely be useful when "training" TitanTV on the MyHD card.
While it takes a while, the ability to decode QAM is great for people like me. In fact, you can even connect this card to a standard cable signal and decode the HD as well as the free digital channels, without having anything more than a basic account. (This is assuming that the cable company doesn't put a filter on your line for analog-only subscriptions, which varies by cableco and area.) You might even find a few channels that don't normally show up, though that's subject to change over time. (Watching these "unauthorized" channels also seemed to be one of the factors leading to crashes with FusionHDTV. I could apparently get other subscribers' On Demand movies on at least five or six channels.) FCC regulations require cable companies at minimum to carry the free OTA content, though, so those at least will be available.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link
The only system it impacted was the MyHD for analog. I did perform most of the tests at stock clock speeds. But yeah, I should probably make that note. (The X2 was overclocked to 2.6 GHz as well, if you didn't notice, but I only tested the MyHD card in that system.)The Boston Dangler - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
"While the Toshiba 46H84 is in fact a 1080i display - or really a 1920x540p display, if I understand it correctly"The display has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution, scanned alternately. 1080i format signals carry data roughly equivalent of 540p.
My opinion: Having owned both 1080i and 720p sets, and watching programs in their native formats, the difference in pic quality is entirely upon the display. There are both formats present in OTA/Cable, something always gets converted. Either format can provide great pics, even after conversion. It's all about the display.
"The onscreen Guide also doesn't work for me - it shows up blank - but this appears to be at least partly Comcast's fault. The FusionHDTV software is supposed to read the EPG information from the channel stream, but Comcast isn't including that in my area, as far as I can tell. (This was a problem on the MyHD as well, so that lends credence to the assumption that the local Comcast provider is to blame.)"
EPG is usually considered an extra service by content providers, thus a cable box and subscription are required. There are online alternatives, sometimes with handy plugins.
slashdotcomma - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
What's the lag between signal and display? Would I be able to use any of these tuner cards and play on a gamecube,xbox(360),ps2/3, etc?JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you trying to capture videos of your gameplay? Or just get the game console input onto your computer screen? Tuning to digital channels introduces about a two second lag, and on analog channels it's more like a .5 second to one second lag. Obviously, neither of those would be acceptable for gaming. It sounds like what you really want would be some form of transcoder?Note: it never even occurred to me to test this aspect of the cards, and I don't have a game console with which to test it. Sorry -- I'm a PC gamer. :-)
slashdotcomma - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
Yes, I'm trying to get the game console input onto my computer screen. Lag for changing channels and lag between signal and screen is slightly different. For example, I played around with an AIW-9800 pro and changing channels would introduce a slight lag, but playing game consoles on it was beautiful. No lag, and everything was smooth as silk (p42.8c, 1gb ram, don't remember which MMC v9 it was). Actually it doesn't even have to be a video console, try plugging in a dvd player or vcr and try moving around in the menu. I wish more reviewers would add this to part of their reviews. I plan on playing around with Dscaler if I get the chance. There are ways to hook up game consoles to computer screen but you lose the recording ability and in some cases DVI support. Do you have a chance to play around with the older tv tuners as well?JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
I don't have any older TV Tuners, though Anand might still have some of them. I'll have to see if I can get a game console over to try out in this fashion. I might actually have an N64 boxed up somewhere. I use PCs for DVD watching, and I don't have a VCR either, so it's going to take a bit of work. I do know that if I tune in the Comcast box to an analog channel and at least one or two of the tuners (I don't recall which), they were not in sync with each other; the Comcast was slightly ahead all the time, so it seems like lag is present.sprockkets - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
I record for example LOST from the s-video out on my HDTV receiver, and it goes to a Lite On recorder on highest quality, and if you see it you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Or, you can simply record 720x480 at a high quality via s-video in and get the same results on these cards. Of course that means setting up two devices.Does HDTV recording from these cards preserve the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal as well?
segagenesis - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
Yes, they should. If you have ever checked out any of the Lost tv torrents you would be familiar that this is possible also ;)vailr - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
ATI's MMC v. 9.10 may work with 550 tuner cards, according to this thread:http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33835...">ATI words on MMC 9.10: Dual-tuner MulTView + 550 support!
Combined with their Gemstar GuidePlus software, would enable an electronic program guide.
Note: MMC 9.10 is not currently available on ATI's web site; only on the software CD provided with their latest XT180AIW card.
vailr - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
The link is for the older PCI version, not the currently reviewed PCIe version.