[mythtv-users] HDTV Tuner Cards - Please catch me up a few years
Brian Foddy
brian at fodvo.org
Mon Sep 13 02:28:31 UTC 2010
On Sun, 2010-09-12 at 17:11 -0500, William Powers wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Brian Foddy <brian at fodvo.org> wrote:
> > I've been a long-time myth user and built 2 multi-system households, but
> > all with either HD 3000/5000 or Air2PC era cards; all OTA HD in the US.
> > They generally work good, but still about 1 in 8 recordings will be
> > blank and no kernel or myth upgrades have ever fixed em. I've seen it
> > discussed here before. Anyone ever found the cause?
>
> I ran a slave backend with a couple of Air2PC cards in it for about
> four years and I don't think I had more than one or two missed
> recordings the entire time.
>
For some reason, the cards just don't lock in. Happens frequent enough
to be a pain, but not to the urgent level.
> > 2. The HDHomerun, when they came out, I remember there were some
> > touting they had superior HD reception. Is that still true? Any other
> > cards of equal reception quality? The network connection of the Homerun
> > is doable, but not trivial. I'd have to put a second network card in
> > the backend machine or buy a higher end board with 2 networks.
>
> I get excellent reception from my HDHomerun, but then I'm only 25
> miles from the main Houston, Texas antenna farm with an eight bay
> Channelmaster bowtie antenna. I honestly can't say which cards /
> tuners would be better. I'm not sure what you are driving at with
> your comment about the network connection. My HDHR just plugs into
> the same network switch as backend box. You can even assign it a
> static IP if you don't want to go to the trouble of setting up a DHCP
> server for it. After years of occasional ivtv driver stability
> issues, I've become a big fan of the remote, network tuner concept.
>
I'm only 17 miles away, but this house has never had perfect tv
reception. Trees surround the house, aluminum siding, the line-of-sight
to the towers goes straight though the neighbors 2 story house, etc.
Just one of those deals.
The challenge with the network is the backend tuners are in the
basements with only a single network cable down to them. It is the only
place in the house where network and antenna cable meet. So either I'd
have to put a second network card in the computer, or a remote slave
switch (gigabit), or some other not-so-pretty solution.
Brian
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