Looking for a twin tuner DVB-T card to work with DVBV

[smilingcrow]

I’m really pleased with DVBV although my Hauppauge PCI card doesn’t have a great tuner so I’d like to replace it with a twin tuner model that hopefully has a better tuner. The Hauppauge can’t detect one of the local multiplexes even when fed a direct signal that all the other Freeview tuners in the house can pickup.

 

Are there any twin tuner cards that are compatible?

[HD.]

I have had Terratec Cinergy 2400iDT for half-a-year now and it works perfect. At least for me.

[smilingcrow]

I have had Terratec Cinergy 2400iDT for half-a-year now and it works perfect. At least for me.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Has anybody tried the Hauppauge WinTV NOVA-T 500 dual tuner?

[smilingcrow]

According to a thread on the Hauppauge forums the Nova-T 500 works fine with DVBViewer:

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthrea...light=DVBViewer

[Hecxa]

According to a thread on the Hauppauge forums the Nova-T 500 works fine with DVBViewer:

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthrea...light=DVBViewer

 

... started new topic, removed post from here.

Edited August 3, 2007 by Hecxa

[dojan]

I have the Hauppauge WinTV Nova DVB-TD, a stick for USB. And it's wonderful. No problems and much fun...

[willebra]

I have the Hauppage NOVA T-500. It works fine with DVBViewer - both tuners at the same time (only in use for recordings).

[Lars_MQ]

Pinnacle PCTV 2000e (PCTV Dual DVB-T Diversity Stick - USB2) works also without problems.

[smilingcrow]

Pinnacle PCTV 2000e (PCTV Dual DVB-T Diversity Stick - USB2) works also without problems.

Thanks. Hopefully the PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro PCI card will also work.

[smilingcrow]

I’m resurrecting this old thread that I started last year.

I ended up buying the Terratec Cinergy 2400iDT that was recommended in the first reply and have been happy with it.

I’m now looking for a dual tuner DVB-T card for my parents at a lower price.

I’ve found the Pinnacle PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro PCI Express card for a good price but can’t see any reports on the forum on whether it works or not. Has anyone tried this card?

Note: This is the PCIe version.

[straits]

I’m really pleased with DVBV although my Hauppauge PCI card doesn’t have a great tuner so I’d like to replace it with a twin tuner model that hopefully has a better tuner. The Hauppauge can’t detect one of the local multiplexes even when fed a direct signal that all the other Freeview tuners in the house can pickup.

 

Are there any twin tuner cards that are compatible?

 

Hi, Try to scan with the Transedit DEMO, an transponder editor, it works fine with your Dvb-t pci card! and you can also transfer discovered channels to your DVBViewer program...

 

I 've got the hvr (hibrid dvb-t dvb-s) and I'm pretty surprised what it works good.

 

straits.

[smilingcrow]

I bought the Pinnacle PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro PCIe card and I can’t recommend it.

I can’t pick up all the MUXs with DVBViewer even though I have an excellent signal and other cards I’ve tried have no problem.

The Pinnacle software managed to scan them all after I manually set it to use the slower scan method which took ages. To use both tuners you have to feed both aerial inputs which is plain stupid. I suspect the tuner isn’t very sensitive and that two feed both inputs I’d need an amplified signal splitter which is too cumbersome and adds to the cost.

 

Any ideas on how I can get DVBViewer to detect all the MUXs automatically? Is there a setting to adjust the scan sensitivity or rate?

I figure I can enter the details manually if I copy them from another system that has all the channels. I tried exporting a list from one PC to another but the new channels showed the EPG but no picture!

 

Sometimes things are cheap for a reason. £18.50 delivered for a dual hybrid tuner card with Remote has been too good to be true.

[CX23882-19]

The Pinnacle 3010iX isn't too bad, but you're right about having to feed both inputs in order for it to work. It's supposed to share the signal from a single input to both tuners, but in my experience it sometimes "forgets" to do that. Even with that limitation, the card is a bargain - especially when you consider that the equivalent GDI BlackGold card (same tuner, chipset, demod) costs over £60! Still, you'd need to pry my pair of Terratec 2400i from my cold dead fingers before I'd swap them for anything else - they have been exceptionally good performers.

 

I suspect that your problem with channels not being found is due to the default configuration not supporting automatic offset locking. You can enable it by setting EnableAutoOffset to 1 in the Registry, as a DWORD. To find the location to where to create EnableAutoOffset search for TDA8275A_LNA_ and create it in the same location. Reboot after making the change.

Edited April 14, 2008 by CX23882-19

[smilingcrow]

I suspect that your problem with channels not being found is due to the default configuration not supporting automatic offset locking. You can enable it by setting EnableAutoOffset to 1 in the Registry, as a DWORD. To find the location to where to create EnableAutoOffset search for TDA8275A_LNA_ and create it in the same location. Reboot after making the change.

Thanks for that, I figured that it might be possible somehow. I’m going to give it a go tomorrow. Cheers.

 

P.S. I love my Terratec 2400i DT also.

[smilingcrow]

I suspect that your problem with channels not being found is due to the default configuration not supporting automatic offset locking. You can enable it by setting EnableAutoOffset to 1 in the Registry, as a DWORD. To find the location to where to create EnableAutoOffset search for TDA8275A_LNA_ and create it in the same location. Reboot after making the change.

Thanks, that did the trick with regard channel scanning.

 

Unfortunately the card is too unreliable though. When it works it can handle 2 MUXs with a single aerial input and then the next day Windows can’t see the card at all. I have two of these in 2 separate systems and they both show the same problem. Weird.

[CX23882-19]

For anyone reading this thread - the Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT might not be a great choice after all. I have my original card from 2006 and that continues to work perfectly. I bought another card to go alongside it in 2007 (brand new in box) and after a month or so it started to display issues with the second tuner whereby after it had been on for a few hours, it lost sensitivity. Leave it to cool down and it starts working again (but it was hardly described as hot - the tuners were barely warm!). I returned it for a refund. I bought another 2400i in March this year - this time it came in a smaller box. A month later and it is doing the same thing. The original 2006 card continues to work perfectly.

 

One good card is the Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro 2000i. It's a native PCI device, so there aren't annoying USB issues as with the other PCI dual-tuner cards. I think it may have been discontinued though because many stores no longer stock it and those which do are charging about 50% more for it than they were last year! It works superbly though.

Edited April 26, 2008 by CX23882-19

[IRa]

One good card is the Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro 2000i.

Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T 500 PCI has worked OK with me and it is (at least in Finland) 20% cheaper than Pinnacle

[Curlo]

I agree with bad comments about terratec 2400i dt. Had two of them, both were really unreliable, always another tuner lost signal and so on.. Don't buy those, maybe some manufacturing problems. They are also very sensitive to electromagnetic interference, signal could be lost by changing the CPU of the computer (tried in many different computers, with different aerials and even on different cities).

Edited April 27, 2008 by Curlo

[smilingcrow]

I agree with bad comments about terratec 2400i dt. Had two of them, both were really unreliable, always another tuner lost signal and so on.. Don't buy those, maybe some manufacturing problems. They are also very sensitive to electromagnetic interference, signal could be lost by changing the CPU of the computer (tried in many different computers, with different aerials and even on different cities).

Mine’s been working fine as has somebody else’s that posted here. Maybe they had a bad batch unless there are PCIe incompatibility issues!

[Curlo]

I think it is their quality control/attempt to lower manufacturing costs or their pci-e design is faulty. I had a problem from beginning that 2400 didn't find all the channels which the other tuners (hauppauge, humax set top, artec set top) found very easily. I opened my chassis and put a shield made of steel between CPU and all the expansion cards >> it found all the channels, so then I thought it would be just electromagnetic incompatibility with my motherboard/CPU, tested with another brand new computer >> same symptoms so it is a design fault (at least with those two I had, and of course this happens only when your channel frequencies and your system CPU/memory/FSB have same frequency harmonics). Then there was some other problems because it was very usual that one of the two tuners somehow lost all the function and didn't work at all >> then I got my money back. I personally now prefer silicon type tuners (like almost all usb tuners are), not these old fashioned seperate component tuners shielded by aluminum case (like in 2400), however these old fashioned can work also brilliantly if designed right, so I think problems with 2400i are the rest of control electronics design.

[Curlo]

Terratec USB DualTuner XS Diversity has been very reliable (both tuners). It changes channels a little bit faster than 2400i, but starting it for the first time takes longer time than I have usually seen with internal PCI/PCI-E tuners, maybe better with future driver updates, but I wouldn't hope much from terratec support (my experience was very bad with 2400i problems).

 

With USB tuners it is great that they work with very low temperature because they are not inside of the computer and because of this they do not generally suffer EM interference from CPU/motherboard/GPU. I just put my usb tuner with zip ties to the back of the enclosure. However with diseqc motors, internal tuners are the only way to go because of power needs.

Edited April 27, 2008 by Curlo

[CX23882-19]

I must admit that I'm disappointed with the two most recent 2400i DT cards. My 2006 card is superb - quite possibly the most reliable card I've ever used and the one which usually gets the lowest discontinuity errors when testing against another card with multiple instances of DVBViewer GE.

 

The other two (from 2007 and 2008) also perform well, but they will suddenly deteriorate. The strange thing is that the card revision is the same and they physically look the same as my good one, but there is a definate performance difference on the 2nd tuner. I've already returned the 2007 card and I'm RMA'ing the newest one back to Scan in the UK, but they'll only offer a replacement so I guess it'll be going on eBay. I don't trust it to be any better than the card I'm RMA'ing.

 

The 3010iX cards perform quite nicely, except for the annoying issue with the signal routing. I'd suggest a card such as the Hauppauge HVR-2200 (when it's released in Europe) to be a good substitute because it does not have these problems. But they will cost more than the 3010iX which is crazy-cheap.

 

The Nova-T 500 and Pinnacle 2000i also perform well if you want PCI.

 

As for USB, I found that the CPU usage was slightly higher than PCI/PCIe, mostly in DPCs. It's not an issue with one tuner, or even two, but a quad-tuner setup I tested (4x HVR-900) ate up 20% CPU in DPCs alone. By comparing a 6-tuner (enough to record every UK channel) comprising of 2x Pinnacle 2000i and 1x Terratec 2400i uses <2% when all tuners are running (as in CPU usage that can be attributed to the card's driver, not overhead from software etc.)

Edited April 29, 2008 by CX23882-19

[CX23882-19]

What a complete piece of crap. I've had another of these 2400i go bad on me. Once again, it's only the second tuner and only affects certain frequencies. Last time it was 834MHz this time 762MHz. I've never, ever had a Hauppauge card go bad on me, whether they're using silicon tuners or can tuners. Hauppauge cards with similar Thomson tuners to the Terratec have lasted me for years, and they've been crammed into low airflow cases and allowed to run relatively hot. This Terratecs end up dieing even if well looked after. I give up - the pair of them are going on eBay.