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Digital/analogue Freeview card, which one?

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1 Jan 2005
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There are a lot more different cards than I expected so basically which one is the no brainer choice and what can you recommend? I've seen cards from Leadtek/Hauppauge and Compro (never heard of Compro before, any good?)

Requirements are just watching & recording to hdd from freeview channels (not simultaneously), although analogue might as well be chucked in also. My pc is running XP 32bit and maybe upgraded to vista 64bit sometime in the future, also if possible linux compatibility would be nice if its used in the backup plan :)

All the cards have slight variations, what they all seem to have in common from the photos is some bloated software to schedule & watch tv. baring that in mind are there certain ones to stay well clear of?

Cheers,
Dan
 
Don't bother with an analogue one, if you can get a freeview signal that is, and get one with dual tuners so you can record one channel while watching or recording another.

'WinTV' that comes with the hauppage cards is pants but there are lots of free apps around that are better and the hauppage cards are well supported in MCE which you will probably use if you upgrade to vista in the future.

Then just find one that has the tuners and form factor/interface that suits you.

Black Gold also make good tv cards.

Hope this helps
 
There are a lot more different cards than I expected so basically which one is the no brainer choice and what can you recommend? I've seen cards from Leadtek/Hauppauge and Compro (never heard of Compro before, any good?)

Well, bought a compro digital tuner card a while ago, and it was a pain to get working correctly. Had to manually ensure the correct driver was loaded - wouldn't work when using the normal setup programs. Updated the drivers and it failed again.

In fact I tried it again in a freshy rebiult pc only last week. Same issues, and that was an XP32 install. XP64 has no drivers.. :(

Wouldn't scan for any channels - stopped as soon as I clicked "scan". Apparantly a "bug" with direct x 9b - which is odd as it had installed 9c from the install cd. :confused:

Basically ended up rebiulding the machine again - seems very fussy about installation order. :( Took a few attempts to get it working. Needs a strong TV signal, and when it finds a bad channel it often looses all the rest of the channels too. :eek:

As stated though its an older card (I think one of the first digital ones they did - DVB-T200?) so perhaps the newer ones are better. Given up on this one though. :(

I've had no issues when using Haupauge cards in the past (although that was with analoque cards) and they have been very good with support. I'll probably get one of those if I need a tuner card for the pc again.
 
Get yourself a hauppage Nova-T 500 dual freeview card and get a free copy of
GB PVR it rocks

Compro cards make excellent paper weights but are pants for watching TV
 
Blackgold BGT3510, dual tuners which can be analogue or digital, component video in and hardware encoding to mpeg/divx/vc1/h.264
 
Ive only got a Freeview Compro T200 card, but it is fully supported in win xp and vista 32/64 with driver updates appearing first on windows update before compros own site. Works great in vista media centre.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, here's the quick contender/summary list I have so far:

Hybrid cards
Leadtek PxDTV2300H Hybrid PCI-E TV Tuner [~£40]
Leadtek PxDVR3200H Hybrid PCI-E TV Tuner [~£50]
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1100 Hybrid PCI TV Tuner [~£40]
Compro VideoMate T500F DVB-T Hybrid Internal PCI TV Tuner [~£45]

Dual Digital Cards (I think some may be wrong)

Compro VideoMate DVB-T750 Digital TV Internal PCI [~£45]
Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T-500 [~£50]
Compro VideoMate T750F Dual DVB-T Hybrid Internal PCI TV Tuner [~£55]

Still not sure if the compro cards are to be trusted, I thought hauppauge were meant to be good but they aren't sold at most places (inc. overclockers).
 
Looks like the Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T-500 will do the job, are there any major problems with this card? I hear the software may be below useless, any alternatives?
 
'WinTV' that comes with the hauppage cards is pants but there are lots of free apps around that are better and the hauppage cards are well supported in MCE which you will probably use if you upgrade to vista in the future.

WinTV is quite possibly one the the ugliest and painful to use pieces of software I have ever encountered. Contrast and compare to the superb EyeTV software available on OS X, somebody needs to rip it off for all the poor Windows users out there.
 
which one are you going for ?

with these cards / usbs sticks do you need to have a better arieal that the one supplied or will that do the trick ?
 
I was going for the NOVA-T-500 but after just seeing the recommendation for the Cinergy 2400i and checking it out it's between those two now, all depends which one is easier to get hold of.

From the looks of it both of these cards have a coaxial input so I should be able to hook it up like other freeview things to the main arial.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, here's the quick contender/summary list I have so far:

Hybrid cards
Leadtek PxDTV2300H Hybrid PCI-E TV Tuner [~£40]
Leadtek PxDVR3200H Hybrid PCI-E TV Tuner [~£50]
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1100 Hybrid PCI TV Tuner [~£40]
Compro VideoMate T500F DVB-T Hybrid Internal PCI TV Tuner [~£45]

Dual Digital Cards (I think some may be wrong)

Compro VideoMate DVB-T750 Digital TV Internal PCI [~£45]
Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T-500 [~£50]
Compro VideoMate T750F Dual DVB-T Hybrid Internal PCI TV Tuner [~£55]

Still not sure if the compro cards are to be trusted, I thought hauppauge were meant to be good but they aren't sold at most places (inc. overclockers).

I got my Hauppauge 4000 from Ocuk & it runs like a dream
 
I'm after an internal freeview card at the moment but i'd like to be able to use my wii (or any other console) through my prospective tv card. Any recommendations from you fellas??
cheers in advance ;)
 
After having a look at all sorts of cards I would say any of the hybrid card's on my original list should be fine for freeview but for a wii would you also need a composite connection?
 
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