Media Center PC need Sat tuner card?

[jerdei]

This is a re-post. I posted in the wrong section.

Hi all,

I just joined. Stumbled upon this site doing some research.

I am setting up a system with a friend. I'm looking for a good PCI Sat tuner card that is HD capable. We want to have the satellite go into the card and be able to record shows and the like.

The Video card we are looking at getting is the Diamond Radeon HD 3870 Video Card - 512MB GDDR4, PCI Express 2.0.

I need to know what HD SAT tuner card to get and am a little lost. We already own the following two models but thet are not HD. Many HD tuner cards I am told will not work with satellite. I'm at a loss so any help would be great.

Chaintech DST-100

and a

WinTv (not sure but the numbers read) Wintv NTSC/ NTSC-J
Hauppauge 26052 Rev C185
4304-7598734
Hanstar MV-4 94-V-0


Regards,

Jacob

 

[diogen]

Are you talking about subscription satellite services?
If you want to stay legal - it's not doable.
If you want to make it doable - it's illegal and not allowed to be discussed here.

If you are talking FTA - it has very little hidef...

Diogen.

 

[jerdei]

I'm talking legal. I pay for satellite.

Also I see HD PCI tv tuner cards on the market that say they are HD capable so I am assuming that means HD does work on it. The input would be HD into my sat tuner card and the output would be from my HD video card into my tv.

Any one else want to chime in on this. diogen may be right but like I sid I see HD Sat tuner cards on the market.

 

[charper1]

I'm talking legal. I pay for satellite.

Also I see HD PCI tv tuner cards on the market that say they are HD capable so I am assuming that means HD does work on it. The input would be HD into my sat tuner card and the output would be from my HD video card into my tv.

Any one else want to chime in on this. diogen may be right but like I sid I see HD Sat tuner cards on the market.

As far as I have read the HD SAT cards will pull in the FTA sat "wild feeds" that happen to be in HD, but this is NOT DBS (aka pay sat services). The other HD PCI cards are likely ATSC cards (aka over the air / antenna).

You will need a very high power PC and an expensive studio-style HD video capture card installed; you would run one of the actual DBS receiver outputs to this card in the PC to basically "half-ass" DVR the programming; this would all be a labor intensive manual process.

EXAMPLES: Blackmagic Design: DeckLink HD

iStudiosTv - DeckLink HD Extreme


...and read here:

Microsoft Windows Media - Desktop HD Capture Solutions

 

[jerdei]

You guys know your stuff. Thanks for the input guys. All these new TMDA's ( Too many damn acronym ) I get confused. I'm a pc guy but never messed with setting up a media center using Satelitte.

Any other sugestions. I should still be able to use an S-video cable going fro mthe resiver to my PC and capture the video that way. It won't be high def but it should still work. at least I think it would.

 

[charper1]

Yes, and that will provide you with much cheaper capture card solutions, BUT remember that s-video is video only so you would keep an eye on have you bring audio to the capture.

 

[diogen]

...I see HD PCI tv tuner cards on the market that say they are HD capable...

That's a marketting gimmick.
Most of the PCI DVB cards sold 5 years ago can do hidef as good as any newer model.
Everything depends on the PC's horsepower (CPU+GPU) and codecs used.
Just like playing back any hidef material...

Today's Dish hidef uses non-standard FEC that no standard PCI DVB cards can handle.

Diogen.

 

[hendrix04]

That's a marketting gimmick.
Most of the PCI DVB cards sold 5 years ago can do hidef as good as any newer model.
Everything depends on the PC's horsepower (CPU+GPU) and codecs used.
Just like playing back any hidef material...

Today's Dish hidef uses non-standard FEC that no standard PCI DVB cards can handle.

Diogen.

If they do on card decoding then i doubt they do mpeg 4 if it was 5 years old.

 

[diogen]

On-card MPEG-2 decoding was useful for a short period of time before decent DVD players (i.e. software decoders) appeared...
MPEG-4, having gazillion flavours, is even more risky to put in silicon. I don't think it will happen, at least not widespread.
Especially now when H.264 is decoded by on-board video on mobos for under $100 (i.e. HD/BD playback).

Diogen.

 

[daves29]

you might just want to wait until the directv hdpc20 comes out