question about HP Media Center and Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 and ??

[kkapp]

i have an hp media center with a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 card. question is can I connect to both the analog and digital inputs and record from both at the same time. Second, since all broadcasting is going digital does this make the analog input kinda useless?

I have directv with one hd receiver and a couple standard receivers. I would eventually like to convert this pc to a full blown media center but i think it is lacking a bit. My motherboard has 2 open pci slots so I am guessing I could add two more tuner cards. I have 2 open sata connectors so i could have a total of 4 hard disks. I am wondering what size I could actually put in? I currently have 2 320 gig. I would like to get rid of Vistas media center but I do not think that is possible.

i have installed sagetv and send ripped dvds from a Maxtor 1tb external drive via ethernet to a 200 to my tv. still learning the ins and outs of it.

 

[drvnbysound]

i have an hp media center with a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 card. question is can I connect to both the analog and digital inputs and record from both at the same time. Second, since all broadcasting is going digital does this make the analog input kinda useless?

I have directv with one hd receiver and a couple standard receivers. I would eventually like to convert this pc to a full blown media center but i think it is lacking a bit. My motherboard has 2 open pci slots so I am guessing I could add two more tuner cards. I have 2 open sata connectors so i could have a total of 4 hard disks. I am wondering what size I could actually put in? I currently have 2 320 gig. I would like to get rid of Vistas media center but I do not think that is possible.

i have installed sagetv and send ripped dvds from a Maxtor 1tb external drive via ethernet to a 200 to my tv. still learning the ins and outs of it.

Its been a while (at least a month) since Ive seen one of the external digital tuners - but I think you could hook one of these up in line with your antenna (obviously) and run it into the analog input??? Someone correct this if wrong - but I think the PCs analog tuner could be tuned to CH 3 or 4, and receive the digital signals that are decoded by the box - this would allow you to record 2 channels with the 1800 card if you wanted to.

Hauppauge does have the HVR-2250 (if you are buying new hardware) that supports 2 digital inputs.

 

[sic0048]

Well first off, the only broadcast that is going all digital currently is OTA netowork broadcasts. So unless you have an antenna and are recording shows that way, you don't have anything to worry about. Secondly, even if you are recording from an antenna, this same antenna will work with the digital signals too, so your digital tuner in the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 will continue to work just fine. I think you understand this from your comments, but I just wanted to be clear.

Now to your questions, you should be able to record both 1 digital and 1 analog source with the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800. As suggested, you could probably take the composite or S-Video output from your cable box and use the card to record the signal. Of course you would have to have a way to change the channel on the cable box each time. I'm not sure if the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 has a built in IR blaster or not.

There are lots of options for external tuners. Some will be USB devices, others are network devices that don't attach directly to the computer. What type of signals are you going to record? If you want to record the HD signal from your DirectTV, then you should look into the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It is a USB device, so it would not take up one of your PCI slots.

If you want to record digital OTA signals (ATSC) or unencrypted cable signals (QAM), then I suggest that you look at the HDHomeRun (called HDHR for short). It has dual ATSC/QAM tuners so you can record two shows at once with this tuner. It is also a network tuner meaning that it is connected to the network using a regular cat5e cord and doesn't connect directly to the computer. This obviously means you don't need any PCI slots. :throwup:

But the choice of tuner is obviously going to be narrowed down depending on the type of signal you are trying to record. DirectTV signals will always need to be routed through the STB first. Then you can record the output using either the analog input of your current card, or you can record the component (HD) output of your HD box using the Hauppauge HD-PVR.

 

[drvnbysound]

If he is indeed wanting to record OTA HD programming from antenna, is there any reason why the setup I spoke of above wouldnt work? I am thinking from a hardware perspective that it would be cheaper to do that way, rather than purchasing a HVR-2250 for dual-tuning capability. Possibly not the best way to go from an overall system setup, but it would work.

sic0048 (or other): In what cases, other than limited PCIe slots, would you want to go with the HDHR over Hauppauge products (HVR-2250 and/or HD-PVR)?

 

[123]

... In what cases, other than limited PCIe slots, would you want to go with the HDHR over Hauppauge products (HVR-2250 and/or HD-PVR)?

I'd also like to learn more about the HDHR.

Being a shared network resource, the HDHR can stream from its two HD tuners to any networked PC (PC must be equipped with supported viewing software). Is this also possible when one uses an HVR-2250 card? Or are you limited to viewing exclusively on the PC equipped with the card?

I also noticed that the HDHR provides two antenna inputs whereas the HVR-2250 only has one. A quick glance at the user-feedback on Newegg's site indicates this arrangement reduces flexibility.

 

[drvnbysound]

... In what cases, other than limited PCIe slots, would you want to go with the HDHR over Hauppauge products (HVR-2250 and/or HD-PVR)?

I'd also like to learn more about the HDHR.

Being a shared network resource, the HDHR can stream from its two HD tuners to any networked PC (PC must be equipped with supported viewing software). Is this also possible when one uses an HVR-2250 card? Or are you limited to viewing exclusively on the PC equipped with the card?

I also noticed that the HDHR provides two antenna inputs whereas the HVR-2250 only has one. A quick glance at the user-feedback on Newegg's site indicates this arrangement reduces flexibility.

Why would you need 2 antenna inputs? The HVR-2250 has dual tuners inside - the signal is split inside the card itself, so it doesnt require 2 inputs from the antenna.

Personally, I dont care about being able to stream to other PC or not, etc.. I plan to use exclusively with Sage extenders - so if someone could address the question from both perspectives it would be great.

Here is info on the HVR-2250 straight from Hauppauge: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2250.html

 

[CollinR]

Personally, I dont care about being able to stream to other PC or not, etc.. I plan to use exclusively with Sage extenders - so if someone could address the question from both perspectives it would be great.

If what you are talking about is using a STB and modulating it's output to channel 3 or 4 and tuning that with the analog tuner... Yup works.

However the card also has S video and Composite video inputs plus headers to add more, this means you need not modulate it to an NTSC channel. You can simply connect the devices with patch cables.

This would work for the Dish boxes and is a very common configuration.

You can also use these for any other purposes, a text inserter for a system status channel, CCTV feeds, DVD changer... Anything with a baseband analog output can be captred through those. This is pretty much why I don't consider the HDHR as it can only do ATSC and QAM whereas the Hauppage cards can do NTSC/ATSC/QAM. So if having custom homebrew channels is interesting you might keep the NTSC door open.

 

[123]

Hmm, the "homebrew channels" option via NTSC is an interesting option! A user on Amazon indicated the dual tuners can be configured as being either analog or digital but not one of each. Does this affect the homebrew channel option if you also want to receive OA digital? In other words, are the S-video and composite inputs valid if both internal tuners are set to digital mode ... or are these inputs handled by other internal (analog signal) circuitry?

Does anyone know if the HVR-2250 can stream to networked PCs like the HDHR? Or is this capability only available if you use additional software?

 

[sic0048]

Concerning the HDHR.... I like it for several reasons.

• It is a network tuner - this is good for several reasons IMHO.
  • You don't find it conflicting with local computers like you can have with a PCI or USB type device. This is rare, but does happen due to some weird combination of hardware. Since the HDHR is networked, there is really no chance that a piece of hardware in the local computer will prevent it from working.
  • You can view it from any network computer. Honestly this might be possible with a PCI/USB type device, but I suspect you would have to record the stream to the computer's harddrive and then view that stream on a networked computer via a shared drive or something like that.
• It has dual tuners (QAM, ATSC). You set up the device to use 2 QAM tuners or 2 ATSC tuners or 1 QAM and 1 ATSC tuner. Most other cards do not have this flexability and would require two cards if you wanted to record 2 QAM or 2 ATSC shows at the same time. So it is potentially a money saving device because you can record 2 shows at the same time.
• It has excellent ATSC tuner sensitivity. Although I have now switched to 2 QAM tuners, I use to record ATSC with the HDHR. I always got a better signal with that device than I did with other ATSC tuner card (like the MyHD-130 or the CatsEye USB HD tuner). Of course there is a chance than there are some newer ATSC cards that have more advanced chips now. But when I was looking, the HDHR provided the best sensitivity for the money.

 

[kkapp]

Thanks for the input guys. What i would actually like to do is take my hddvr stb and connect to my pc, since it has two inputs and only one out, then i would of course only get the use of one. I would also like to be able ot connect both my other stb's to the pc to record from as well. I had thought about going with the ota antenna for local but it apears that the sat providers have made it so they bundled the locals in so you cant get a cheaper rate by getting them via ota. that would give me three incoming streams to record from.

Now as i am learning to decypher what can and cant be done, if I use sage extenders to all my tv's, I would be able to watch pretty much any channel on any one of them? or ripped dvds or recorded tv shows? I have decided on the extender way over buying a new motherboard with hdmi out and then running cables from it to my wall mount hdtv. Plus they seem to be much easier to work with for the other tvs as well.

now for the pc. here is a link to the pc http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documen...product=3644702 . as I would like to eventually turn it into a full blown htpc I am not sure what I should upgrade if anything. I am considering a gigabyte network card as it takes a good while to transfer data to my external via the network connection. or maybe I am just impatient.. If i am understanding correctly I can add two more hard drives as I have 4 sata plugs and only have two in the pc as of now. I am guessing I could go up to one tb in size, is this correct? Is that going to get noisy? I have filled my one tb external drive already with my dvd collection. Actually have a few more to archive. My next project would be ripping all my vhs home movies to hd as I have finally figured that out. No thanks to microsoft.

I also have several gigs of family pics and about 10 gigs of music on this machine that i want to be available via the network and the extenders give me this ability i believe.