Dual DVB-T PCIe Tuner to 4 Tuners?

[joecrow]

I would like to upgrade my HTPC which currently has a dual DVBT PCIe tuner (Terratec) to 4 tuners. I looks like I have 2 options:

1. I could add a second dual tuner but it would have to be a regular PCI card as there are no further PCIe slots available, this is the cheapest option.
2. I could replace the existing PCIe dual tuner with a quad tuner and I could use the old tuner elsewhere so it would not be wasted.

My question for option 1 is, does anyone have any experience or comments on how this set up would perform when all tuners were in use?
For option 2, does anyone have any comments/experience regarding the Haupauge HVR 4400 quad tuner or other suggestions, bearing in mind its for DVBT in Germany.

Best Regards

[bobbob]

i use 2 x hauppague 4400 plus 2 x nova S2.

not sure what you're looking for iro point 1. it all behaves perfectly
your real problem is the HVR 4400 is not a quad dvbt-2 tuner. it is a quad tuner of which one of the inputs is DVBt2. there's a tbs or black gold (i think) quad DVB t2 but hauppauge do not make one

[milli260876]

I'd say get a TBS one think its the 6280... Wouldn't dvb-s2 be a better choice with Astra hotbird on a mono block ???

[sorethumbs]

Those cards advertised as 'quad' are a bit misleading sometimes

DVB-S2 hi-definition digital Satellite TV.
DVB-S digital Satellite TV.
Freeview digital Terrestrial TV.
Analogue PAL/SECAM TV.

Really you can only watch/record 1 satellite channel and 1 freeview channel at same time, can't you?

[bobbob]

it is a bit cheeky but as i only bought it for the combo of PCIe and dvb s2 input i wasn't too bothered. not sure who your question was to milli260876?

[sorethumbs]

Well just an observation really, you emphasised it well in your first reply - that the term 'quad' makes you think you can record 4 things but as you said you can't. As as the op doesn't appear to have satellite it would be a bit of a waste of time.

Would the TBS 6284 pci-e quad be the one he could get and do away with the current tuner he has or the TBS 6280 dual one.

Depends on what sort of case he has i guess

[bobbob]

sorry, no i was agreeing with / responding to you SoreThumbs. i was asking milli who his question was directed at about the DVB-S2

[milli260876]

I was saying the op would be better with satellite in Germany. Suppose it depends on what channels he's after...

[milli260876]

Oh and U can call me lee if U want....

[joecrow]

I was saying the op would be better with satellite in Germany. Suppose it depends on what channels he's after...

Yes satellite would be nice but no chance (appartment building rules). My real need at the moment is to be able to record more than 2 FTA channels at a time and was a bit worried about performance with an additional PCI card (box is full height so no probs. fitting), so thanks for the info. and the tip on the Quad card advertising, very confusing product description, even in English.
I noted TBS and Black Gold cards when searching but did not find their quad cards for sale in Germany including Amazon, we do have currently a non-hd capable version of DVBT here (DVBT-1?), so there could be a compatibility issues, it would be good to confirm/deny that if anyone has the info.

Thanks again to everyone
Joe

[CyberSimian]

I noted TBS and Black Gold cards when searching but did not find their quad cards for sale in Germany including Amazon, we do have currently a non-hd capable version of DVBT here (DVBT-1?), so there could be a compatibility issues, it would be good to confirm/deny that if anyone has the info.

The Blackgold 3650 and TBS 6284 are true quad-tuner PCI-E cards that support both DVB-T and DVB-T2. Each tuner automatically switches to receive DVB-T or DVB-T2 according to the MUX to which the card is tuned. I have no experience of digital TV reception in Germany, but if it is currently DVB-T only, you should have no problem using the cards.

One argument against the Blackgold or TBS quad tuner cards is their cost, especially if Germany is not planning to start DVB-T2 broadcasts in the future. On the other hand, I am not aware of any true quad-tuner PCI-E card that receives only DVB-T (and not DVB-T2). The cheapest solution is to purchase a PCI dual-tuner card (there are plenty available), to use in addition to your existing PCI-E card.

If you are seriously considering the Blackgold or TBS products, read some of the comments about them on this site and elsewhere. The Blackgold cards seem to have been somewhat problematic, the TBS cards less so.

I have two TBS 6284 cards, but in a systen running Vista, so currently I can receive only the DVB-T broadcasts. (I am installing Windows 7 later this week.) I purchased my cards via the internet from Southern Satellite in the UK (I think that they may recently have changed their trading name).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[joecrow]

OK, I went for an additional dual PCI DVBT tuner but the upgrade has not turned out to be as successfull as I hoped so far. The new card from PCTV installed and set up, all channels found, without major difficulties. The picture quality however was extremely poor on most channels with some often dropping out completely for periods of time. Each tuner was fine when directly cinnected to the attena but the problem occurs when both are plugged in via a splitter. I have installed an amplifier splitter which has much improved the situation but at certain times of day (early evening seems the worst) I am seeing intermittent picture quality problems on some channels. I have also had an incident where a recording was still going over an hour after the show had finished, never seen that before. The antenna is the common one for the appartment block, not much I can do with that but all cables/connections are good/new. Any suggestions?

[CyberSimian]

I have installed an amplifier splitter which has much improved the situation but at certain times of day (early evening seems the worst) I am seeing intermittent picture quality problems on some channels.

I am tempted to say that you need an aerial amplifier with more amplification. Aerial amplifiers do vary; some give around 8dB of signal gain, others up to 16dB of gain. However, I am surprised that your new arrangement has not provided more of an improvement, so there may be something else wrong with your signal.

If you are getting momentary interruptions (black-screen, freeze-frame, or pixelation), you may be receiving impulsive interference from an electrical appliance, either in your apartment or in a neighbouring one. Troublesome appliances can be items such as refrigerators, freezers, central-heating thermostats, air-conditioning thermostats, in fact any electrical appliance where a relatively large current is switched on or off relatively frequently. The appliance emits a momentary burst of broad-band radio-frequency radiation which is received by cables connected to your PC (sometimes along the mains cables), and this disrupts the tuner for a second or two. Check to see if the picture problems occur at the same time as an appliance switching on or off.

I have also had an incident where a recording was still going over an hour after the show had finished, never seen that before.

Neither have I. Very strange. Perhaps others will know what caused this.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[joecrow]

I have installed an amplifier splitter which has much improved the situation but at certain times of day (early evening seems the worst) I am seeing intermittent picture quality problems on some channels.

I am tempted to say that you need an aerial amplifier with more amplification. Aerial amplifiers do vary; some give around 8dB of signal gain, others up to 16dB of gain. However, I am surprised that your new arrangement has not provided more of an improvement, so there may be something else wrong with your signal.

The amplifier splitter is spec'd at 8-12db and I seem to have made further improvements by checking the signal strength and setting the tuner with the best quality to the top of the priority? list. All channels now have at least 2 tuners at 100% and none below 90%. However I think you are right that the problems are related to interferance, among other things directly below us is a resturant and it does seem it gets worse when it opens, albeit that the new setup seems much more prone to this than the old one!
A further issue that has come up namely that when the HTPC resumes from sleep to make a scheduled recording it wakes up completely rather than using Away mode as it did formally. From this position pressing the off button on the remote does put it into Away mode so it can work. I have de-installed/re-installed the Standby Tool to no avail. Any other suggestions?

[joecrow]

Just to let everyone know I have de-installed the additional PCI tuner and returned to the original config. The bottom line was that I could not get decent quality video with the antenna split between the two tuners and WAF was becomming seriously compromised. I will be traveling to the UK later this year so will consider investing in a TBS or Black Gold quad tuner but for the record does anyone know if both of these cards are real quads vs 2 duals and splitter on the same card?
I will install the PCI tuner in my desktop with a room antenna, so all is not lost!

Thanks to every who responded
Joe

[CyberSimian]

I will be travelling to the UK later this year so will consider investing in a TBS or Black Gold quad tuner but for the record does anyone know if both of these cards are real quads vs 2 duals and splitter on the same card?

The Blackgold and TBS quad-tuner DVB-T/T2 cards each consist of two dual-tuners on a single PCI-E card, so you need two aerial feeds for each card. It seems unlikely that a quad-tuner card would solve your problem, sadly.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[CyberSimian]

A further issue that has come up namely that when the HTPC resumes from sleep to make a scheduled recording it wakes up completely rather than using Away mode as it did formally. From this position pressing the off button on the remote does put it into Away mode so it can work.

My experience to date has been with Vista (I have only this week installed Windows 7), but Vista never woke up in away mode. What happened is that it woke up to perform an unattended recording in normal mode (i.e. screen output enabled), but then after a minute or two transitioned to away mode, at which point the screen output would be disabled. It may be that Windows 7 behaves the same way.

If you are familiar with the concept of the "sleep timeout" (how long the system runs without user input before the system transitions to the sleep state), there is another setting called the "unattended sleep timeout", which is how long the system runs without user input after waking, and that is usually shorter than the ordinary sleep timeout. Unfortunately, you cannot set this value via the "Power Scheme" panel. I think that the default value is 2 minutes, although Media Standby Tool may have altered this on your system.

If you want to review all of the power settings, try this command from a command window (it produces a lot of output, so you may want to redirect the output to a file and then browse the file using Notepad):

POWERCFG /QH

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[joecrow]

A further issue that has come up namely that when the HTPC resumes from sleep to make a scheduled recording it wakes up completely rather than using Away mode as it did formally. From this position pressing the off button on the remote does put it into Away mode so it can work.

Since de-installing the PCI tuner and re-scanning in MCE it now wakes up in Away mode to make a recording, as it always did originally, no other other changes have been made, I'm running Win 7 x64. I'm not going to mess with it for a while, WAF.

[cjmccarthy72]

I will be travelling to the UK later this year so will consider investing in a TBS or Black Gold quad tuner but for the record does anyone know if both of these cards are real quads vs 2 duals and splitter on the same card?

The Blackgold and TBS quad-tuner DVB-T/T2 cards each consist of two dual-tuners on a single PCI-E card, so you need two aerial feeds for each card. It seems unlikely that a quad-tuner card would solve your problem, sadly.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

No, the TBS needs two aerial feeds but the Blackgold 3650 has just one aerial feed- BUT....- I have had to return my BG as it stopped working- Device Manager spitting it out....

[CyberSimian]

No, the TBS needs two aerial feeds but the Blackgold 3650 has just one aerial feed

Yes, you are correct. Apologies to anyone who was mislead by my previous post.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK