Help with Hardware for Cable

[Ultim8]

Hi Guys,

I believe the floppydtv is now dead, Can anyone suggest a good tuner for using Softcams (Use the card as i would my Dbox2) also with HD.

And if possible a dual tuner card so i can record another channel while watching others?

Money is not a factor, i want the best available and i will be using it ideally on Windows 7.

Thanks

[Ultim8]

any idea's guys im new to the HTPC cable scene and dont want to waste money on something thats not upto the job.

I would really like a dual tuner that can do what my dbox does if you know what i mean with the addition of HD and recording another channel while watching another.

Im in the UK and cant seem to find any hardware mentioned in the forums

Cheers

Ulti

[blakey_8]

Have a look here: TerraTec - Products - TV - Cable (DVB-C) - TerraTec Cinergy C PCI HD CI. The CI module isn't integrated but it is included as an add-on .

[evano]

hello everypeeps

[Ultim8]

Thanks Blakey

[Ultim8]

Just noticed Blakey it doesnt mention that you can record while watching another channel, just that you can listen to the radio. Is this a dual tuner or just a single?

[reeves2k2]

its just a single tuner so you would need 2 to record and watch a different channel

it would also help us lot if you couls tell us which frontend interface you intend to use as well because some of the products available which are used alongside softcams struggle to work with windows media center and can become very messy

i have heard some decent stuff about the terratec cable tuner and im sure someone mentioned on the forum got it setup in media center

you could also search ebay for the floppy dtv as there is one going at the mo for £134

but if you are going to be using media center the easiest way is to get a card with a ci slot and use hard cam like a blue zeta with one of the joker firmwares either .79/.80 on it

also be careful with the Technotrend TT cards in media center as a lot of ppl havee had trouble using TT's CI addon and it not being recognized

[Ultim8]

Ideally i would like to use windows 7, but as for the program i use im nt sure yet, but i would like something that can be used to record, watch HD channels, Has a guide and if possible could also be used as a libary for my music and movies on my server.

Basically at the moment I have an old xbox hard modded with XBMC on it, a dbox and a PS3 for blu-ray, im hoping to make these units redundant and have a fairly capable PC too.

Any suggestions on what software would do this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Ultim8]

Dam the floppydtv has gone

and yes i will be getting after reading the zeta blue i believe as that seems to be the one that after some reading seems to be the best...opinions welcome on this too.
Would you guys consider the floppydtv the best solution for my needs?

[reeves2k2]

i would say personally that the floppy is the easiest to use and set up but may become more difficult to soruce now production has stopped

i have only ever used media center for my front end and found win7 media center to be a hell of a lot better than its vista counterpart plus for me the default microsoft decoders work superbly for me i was using nvidia pure video decoder but on win 7 it had trouble with my hd channels and kept going out of sync and stuttering but the microsoft one is bob on .

some ppl are using media portal which is a open source product so updates and plugins etc are fairly frequent but heard it can be tricky to set up but have never dabled with it myself

basically for the needs you mentioned:

* record TV (2 tuners would be needed to watch oe chanel and rcord another)
* watch HD channels
* Has a guide (there is now a guide tool for media center which makes it a hell of a lot easier and is now nice and simple to use)
* and used as a library

they all pretty much do this as standard so it will be just a case of trying different ones to see which you like best

but from my personal point of view i would go win 7 media center
its pleasing on the eye and pretty simple to set up and use and now has a fair few decent plugins
plus you can also use your xbox as a extender with it

HTH