DVB-S/S2 and ATSC Combo Cards

[iammike]

I read in another couple of threads about the MyHD-130 and the FusionHDTV5 express. Anyone still using these, and what programs do you use with them?

I've got a couple MyHD's. I don't use them much since I got the HDHomerun. They do a good job, but being hardware based they don't play well with others. You're pretty much tied to the app it comes with. That said, with the card doing all the work they don't take many CPU cycles and the picture quality is quite good.

 

[Larry1]

I use Mytheatre with my Twinhan 1020a, Nexus-s and Fusion Gold USB ATSC tuner. Windows XP has some problems with the USB drivers and sleep mode. Mytheatre works great for recording from any of these, but no program guide. With the Fusion USB, every so often when my computer comes out of sleep mode, the USB will drop back to low speed and the tuner will not operate. A reboot of the computer solves this untill next time. It is not everytime that the computer comes out of sleep mode that this happens, but usually after five or six resumes. I have a DVBWorld DVB-S2 internal card, but have not installed it yet as I am waiting for RTN to change over to DVB-S2 and for Mytheatre to support DVB-S2 streams.
My computer is left unattended during the week and it comes out of sleep mode for the timers set in Mytheatre. Once the timer has finished recording, Mytheatre shuts down and then after three minutes of no activity, the computer power management kicks in and puts the computer into sleep mode, waiting for the next timer to take place. When I am at the computer I play with the Fusion ATSC USB box, but my signals are very weak and intermittent. I still have work to do on my antenna.... an ongoing project.

 

[iammike]

I have a DVBWorld DVB-S2 internal card, but have not installed it yet as I am waiting for RTN to change over to DVB-S2 and for Mytheatre to support DVB-S2 streams.

The MT4 beta supports DVB-S2. I've been watching the DVB-S2 RTN's with it.

 

[linuxman]

I've got a couple MyHD's. I don't use them much since I got the HDHomerun. They do a good job, but being hardware based they don't play well with others. You're pretty much tied to the app it comes with. That said, with the card doing all the work they don't take many CPU cycles and the picture quality is quite good.

Hi Mike,

Do the MyHD's have BDA drivers for them?

The reason I ask is that MyTheatre is supposed to work with any ATSC device that has BDA drivers.

Have you ever tried the MyHD's with MT?

I use Mytheatre with my Twinhan 1020a, Nexus-s and Fusion Gold USB ATSC tuner. Windows XP has some problems with the USB drivers and sleep mode. Mytheatre works great for recording from any of these, but no program guide. With the Fusion USB, every so often when my computer comes out of sleep mode, the USB will drop back to low speed and the tuner will not operate. A reboot of the computer solves this untill next time. It is not everytime that the computer comes out of sleep mode that this happens, but usually after five or six resumes. I have a DVBWorld DVB-S2 internal card, but have not installed it yet as I am waiting for RTN to change over to DVB-S2 and for Mytheatre to support DVB-S2 streams.
My computer is left unattended during the week and it comes out of sleep mode for the timers set in Mytheatre. Once the timer has finished recording, Mytheatre shuts down and then after three minutes of no activity, the computer power management kicks in and puts the computer into sleep mode, waiting for the next timer to take place. When I am at the computer I play with the Fusion ATSC USB box, but my signals are very weak and intermittent. I still have work to do on my antenna.... an ongoing project.

Thanks Larry.

I have been looking at the FusionHDTV devices too and am still doing some research on them.

 

[iammike]

Hi Mike,

Do the MyHD's have BDA drivers for them?

The reason I ask is that MyTheatre is supposed to work with any ATSC device that has BDA drivers.

Have you ever tried the MyHD's with MT?


Thanks Larry.
.

I'm pretty sure they don't, all though I've never really tried. They discontinued new development on the product a couple of years ago and at the time they did not have BDA drivers. There's a lot of info on avsforum in the HTPC forum about MyHD. Here's the link to the FAQ thread:

MyHD MDP-130 Meta FAQ - AVS Forum

 

[linuxman]

I'm pretty sure they don't, all though I've never really tried. They discontinued new development on the product a couple of years ago and at the time they did not have BDA drivers. There's a lot of info on avsforum in the HTPC forum about MyHD. Here's the link to the FAQ thread:

MyHD MDP-130 Meta FAQ - AVS Forum

Thanks for the link Mike.

According to the link, there are no BDA drivers for the MDP-130, so can't go in that direction.

Looks like FusionHDTV might be the best hope for ATSC viewing at least in MyTheatre.

 

[iammike]

Thanks for the link Mike.

According to the link, there are no BDA drivers for the MDP-130, so can't go in that direction.

Looks like FusionHDTV might be the best hope for ATSC viewing at least in MyTheatre.

If the cost difference is okay (about $40) I think I'd still be tempted to go with the HDHomerun if I were you. It's got BDA drivers and has 2 tuners. If you decide to go with a media center solution down the road, you'd already have what you needed.

 

[linuxman]

If the cost difference is okay (about $40) I think I'd still be tempted to go with the HDHomerun if I were you. It's got BDA drivers and has 2 tuners. If you decide to go with a media center solution down the road, you'd already have what you needed.

Have you ever tried it using MyTheatre?

I'd like to hear from someone who has used this device with MyTheatre to at least get some idea of how well it works.

 

[qwert1515]

I have a Fusion HDTV5 USB and a Fusion HDTV7 USB.

I have tried a few 3rd party programs but I like the factory software (FusionHDTV) the most.

I just tried The FusionHDTV7 USB with the latest MyTheater and it took 514 seconds to scan all the channels, and the FusionHDTV software takes only 50 seconds.

 

[Stefan]

According to the link, there are no BDA drivers for the MDP-130, so can't go in that direction.

You should still consider picking up a MyHD card even if you get some other Atsc tuner card. It's true there is no BDA support for the MyHD and there never will be as the BDA architecture doesn't support hardware decoders which is what the MyHD is built around, but BDA is not the be all end all. The MyHD is useful for those involved in this hobby even if you never use the tuner on the card. It can be used to playback recorded streams and can do so even while they are being recorded. It can play up to 40mbit/sec Mpeg 2 streams very well and here's a secret a lot of people don't know. It can also playback some 4:2:2 SD streams (but not 4:2:2 HD). So, it makes an excellent playback device. Do a search on Ebay for "MDP-120" and you'll find someone selling them for $24 ($16 + $8 shipping). Obviously these are used and they're not the newer 130, but they're well worth this price. By the way the only difference between the 120 and 130 is the 130 tuner does QAM. The DVI duaghter cards are different though and the dvi card for the 130 will unfortunately not work on the 120 (the 120 had an optional DVI daughter card as well, but those don't seems to be as plentiful as the 130 daughter cards).

 

[iammike]

Have you ever tried it using MyTheatre?

I'd like to hear from someone who has used this device with MyTheatre to at least get some idea of how well it works.

I actually hadn't however I've always seen each of the HDHomerun tuners on my list of devices in MT. Just for kicks I just tried it and it seems to work great. I did a scan, you need to scan 6Mhz frequencies, and it found all of my local channels. I'm using cable as a source and the QAM tuning worked fine. It didn't find anything when I picked cable as the source in MT though. I'm not really sure why. but other than that quirk it worked great. I watched TV for several minutes and it seemed to work fine. The only drawback I can see is to use the second tuner you'll have to start a second instance of MT.

Mike

 

[linuxman]

I have a Fusion HDTV5 USB and a Fusion HDTV7 USB.

I have tried a few 3rd party programs but I like the factory software (FusionHDTV) the most.

I just tried The FusionHDTV7 USB with the latest MyTheater and it took 514 seconds to scan all the channels, and the FusionHDTV software takes only 50 seconds.

Thanks Qwert.

Wow, that is a while to scan in the channels.

So is it standard practice to keep the programs separate when viewing OTA and FTA except when using SageTV?

I just thought it would be pretty cool if I could use a program like MT to view both. They don't seem to have a problem doing that with the STB's like the Diamond.

 

[linuxman]

You should still consider picking up a MyHD card even if you get some other Atsc tuner card. It's true there is no BDA support for the MyHD and there never will be as the BDA architecture doesn't support hardware decoders which is what the MyHD is built around, but BDA is not the be all end all. The MyHD is useful for those involved in this hobby even if you never use the tuner on the card. It can be used to playback recorded streams and can do so even while they are being recorded. It can play up to 40mbit/sec Mpeg 2 streams very well and here's a secret a lot of people don't know. It can also playback some 4:2:2 SD streams (but not 4:2:2 HD). So, it makes an excellent playback device. Do a search on Ebay for "MDP-120" and you'll find someone selling them for $24 ($16 + $8 shipping). Obviously these are used and they're not the newer 130, but they're well worth this price. By the way the only difference between the 120 and 130 is the 130 tuner does QAM. The DVI duaghter cards are different though and the dvi card for the 130 will unfortunately not work on the 120 (the 120 had an optional DVI daughter card as well, but those don't seems to be as plentiful as the 130 daughter cards).

HI Stefan,

That's pretty cheap, and good information. The price for such a device would make it worthwhile if you never used the tuner.

 

[linuxman]

I actually hadn't however I've always seen each of the HDHomerun tuners on my list of devices in MT. Just for kicks I just tried it and it seems to work great. I did a scan, you need to scan 6Mhz frequencies, and it found all of my local channels. I'm using cable as a source and the QAM tuning worked fine. It didn't find anything when I picked cable as the source in MT though. I'm not really sure why. but other than that quirk it worked great. I watched TV for several minutes and it seemed to work fine. The only drawback I can see is to use the second tuner you'll have to start a second instance of MT.

Mike

Well, it is looking better all the time.

Thanks for giving it a shot. I don't have cable here, and probably won't for another 10 years or maybe never, but I do get a good signal from St. Louis on my OTA antenna so the cable part won't bother me at all.

 

[starman345]

Well, it is looking better all the time.

Thanks for giving it a shot. I don't have cable here, and probably won't for another 10 years or maybe never, but I do get a good signal from St. Louis on my OTA antenna so the cable part won't bother me at all.

Mike mentioned having to have two instances of MT to run both your tuners. I've been playing with Dvbviewer today and have my c-band system(Dvbworld 2104) and ku-band system(twinhan 1020a) both running in one instance. Seems to work ok, I'm using two satellite tuners and you want one atsc, one satellite, both are choices in Dvbviewer so that should work for you. Its kind of neat, if I choose to change from a c-band channel to a ku channel I can hear the twinhan click and go down and the dvbworld starts up and vice versa. Can't seem to get Usals to work on the ku side though

 

[linuxman]

Mike mentioned having to have two instances of MT to run both your tuners. I've been playing with Dvbviewer today and have my c-band system(Dvbworld 2104) and ku-band system(twinhan 1020a) both running in one instance. Seems to work ok, I'm using two satellite tuners and you want one atsc, one satellite, both are choices in Dvbviewer so that should work for you. Its kind of neat, if I choose to change from a c-band channel to a ku channel I can hear the twinhan click and go down and the dvbworld starts up and vice versa. Can't seem to get Usals to work on the ku side though

That's great to know.

DVBViewer is second on my list of software programs to use for this setup, so little things like this along with software blind-scanning might bring it to the fore-front.

BTW, I see where MT beta 3 is out now, and Saar says the Twinhan problem has been solved.

 

[starman345]

DVBViewer is second on my list of software programs to use for this setup, so little things like this along with software blind-scanning might bring it to the fore-front.

I've been reading on the Dvbviewer forum and apparently you can run two tuners simultaneously, I suppose you could record from one tuner while watching from another tuner. Will have to try this

BTW, I see where MT beta 3 is out now, and Saar says the Twinhan problem has been solved.

Yup, I tried it today and My Twinhan works:up

 

[linuxman]

I've been reading on the Dvbviewer forum and apparently you can run two tuners simultaneously, I suppose you could record from one tuner while watching from another tuner. Will have to try this

Now that would be interesting. To have the ability to watch something on the satellite and record an OTA channel at the same time.

Yup, I tried it today and My Twinhan works:up

I guess I need to download it and try it on my Twinhan too. I would like to catch an h.264 channel in MT to see how it operates with the new software.

 

[oncewaslost]

I've been reading on the Dvbviewer forum and apparently you can run two tuners simultaneously, I suppose you could record from one tuner while watching from another tuner. Will have to try this



Yup, I tried it today and My Twinhan works:up

I have the dvbworld 2104 and three atsc tuners running on DvbViewer. A Happauge hvr-950, Avermedia Volar and Avermedia Volar Max. The only thing I don't like about the dvbworld 2104 is that it is so small I keep knocking it off. The Volar max is the best ATSC tuner of the three. It is even a little better than my idle MDP-130.

 

[starman345]

I have the dvbworld 2104 and three atsc tuners running on DvbViewer. A Happauge hvr-950, Avermedia Volar and Avermedia Volar Max. The only thing I don't like about the dvbworld 2104 is that it is so small I keep knocking it off. The Volar max is the best ATSC tuner of the three. It is even a little better than my idle MDP-130.

Thats interesting, do I understand correctly that you can run all the tuners at the same time or at least 2 of them? I've been muddling through the German on the dvbviewer forums trying to figure this out..