Win TV Card and backend recommendation please.
#1
Morning all.

Right I really want to get my media center sorted out in time for xbmc 13 my wife is getting annoyed at its half working state. I currently have a windows box with a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1200 with the back end of argus. Firstly it only picks up a small selection of channels unlike our freeview tv which picks up many many more. Ontop of that it takes over 30 seconds to start live tv or even change channel.

I am now looking to experienced users in the community who can recemmend me a new tv card and which backend to use with it. It must be suitable for UK freeview (we have good reception), and fast channel switching and one with good rep for getting all channels. I also don't have a large budget so nothing too expensive please. I do have a satellite so could go down the freesat route instead but from what I have seen these cards are more expensive.

If there is such thing as a dual tuner setup this would be amasing but not necessary.

Please I need your help!
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#2
How techy are you?

I run OpenElec with TV Headend - and it works pretty well for me. I get Freeview HD with a PCTV 290e (beware - they are tricky to get now and the 292e doesn't have Linux support). Dual tuner USB devices for SD Freeview are also widespread. However your HVR1200 should be fine if you have a decent aerial. (There is sometimes a driver issue with an internal amp in the USB stick not being enabled that reduces the sensitivity of the tuner)

However TV Headend isn't ideal for total beginners.

** EDIT - sorry - just seen you want a Windows solution. How about Windows Media Center? There is a plugin for XBMC now **
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#3
Hi, Thanks for the reply, I am an IT Tech and a big geek so Techy enough :-p

I don't mind anything that wont work with linux as I will only be using Windows and I have my reasons. As for the aerial our house has a high quality loft aerial with an inline booster (I know its not needed for digital but I cannot remove it easily because of how the previous owners set it up, But when its plugged into our Freeview TV it receives all freeview channels and no signal issues.

Your comment about the problem with the driver and internal amp in the USB stick are you talking about my tuner because if so its not a USB one its a PCI-E card. Windows Media Center I am not keen on using it my eyes its not a great solution I would rather software designed specifically at being a TV Server, I will also have a second XBMC client upstairs running from an Android box and I want to receive Live TV from the downstairs machine as well. I also wanted all features like timeshift and scheduled recording, EPG etc etc.I read that ArgusTV was good which is what im currently using but thats where I get the massive delay from....
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#4
Funnily enough, I've just set up Argus TV as I was having problems with my initial choice of NextPVR...slow channel changes (10-15 seconds HD, 8-12 seconds SD), plus I had to restart the recording service every morning as it crashed during OTA EPG updates. Argus TV has been much more stable and channel changes are about 5 seconds for the first change and 2-4 seconds for subsequent changes (HD or SD). Much better. This is on a Lenovo Q190 (1.4GHz i3) with a PCTV 461e DVB-S2 USB stick. I pick up all the channels I want from over satellite.

I'd also comment that I'm using the Gotham Beta 3 which I think you are from your post...given that, I think your slow channel changes are down to something else in the chain...
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#5
Ooooh, just a thought. What SQL backend have you got running for Argus? I'm on MS SQL 2008 Express which they say gives the best and quickest results. If you're on MySQL, maybe that's a bottleneck?
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#6
I am pretty sure it was MS-E 08 I installed but I would have to check when I am at home.
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#7
(2014-04-14, 11:50)Maximusi Wrote: Your comment about the problem with the driver and internal amp in the USB stick are you talking about my tuner because if so its not a USB one its a PCI-E card.

I think the amp issue was common to both USB and internal tuners. In many cases the internal tuner was the same design as the USB tuner, with the internal card also having a USB interface integrated into it!

I'll duck out from software discussions - I use a mix of Windows Media Center (with DVB Logic tuner virtualisation) and TV Headend for my solutions. (TV Headend running DVB-T/T2 tuners on a Pogoplug or GoFlex Net is a very neat low power backend tuner and recorder solution I'm quite fond of!)
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#8
Just seen your first post JesusOnEez don't know how I missed that lol Yes i am currently using the Beta version although the exact same problems exist in the previous stable version so I know its not an XBMC bug I have reinstalled the PC as well.

I have my plate full the next few days programming but after that I will have a play with it again see what I can do I will give TVHeadend a go as well.
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#9
I use argus with 2 dual dvb-t and 1 dvb-s2 on a hub and all that on a Asus eb1033 with windows 7. Channel changes became 1 second after I installed latest nightly gotham.
I had tried all backends before settle to this solution
There's no substitute for experience
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#10
(2014-04-13, 12:50)Maximusi Wrote: Morning all.

Right I really want to get my media center sorted out in time for xbmc 13 my wife is getting annoyed at its half working state. I currently have a windows box with a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1200 with the back end of argus. Firstly it only picks up a small selection of channels unlike our freeview tv which picks up many many more. Ontop of that it takes over 30 seconds to start live tv or even change channel.

I am now looking to experienced users in the community who can recemmend me a new tv card and which backend to use with it. It must be suitable for UK freeview (we have good reception), and fast channel switching and one with good rep for getting all channels. I also don't have a large budget so nothing too expensive please. I do have a satellite so could go down the freesat route instead but from what I have seen these cards are more expensive.

If there is such thing as a dual tuner setup this would be amasing but not necessary.

Please I need your help!
It seems no one has address your problem of a decent TV PC card for Windows that receives a good reception with right amount of channels, and can change channels in a decent time for UK. I am also interested in such a card, that is also relative easy to setup, to use in XBMC and recording.
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#11
For Freeview HD the PCTV 290e (beware the 292e - Linux drivers not yet ready) has worked well for me on Windows and Linux. It even works, with a bit of fettling, on TV Headend Arch Linux and Debian builds on very low power Pogoplug and GoFlex Net platforms.

If you are running under Windows then the August DVB-T210 appears to be the lowest cost, reliable tuner if you want Freeview HD. (Linux drivers for T2 are still WIP but looking hopeful - DVB-T is OK on it under Linux)

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Ha...nformation Is always useful to look for Linux supported TV tuners. Though looking at that page the DVB-T2 USB page appears to include all the DVB-T tuners now...

The other thing to remember is that channel change times are also partially related to the encoding the broadcaster uses. Longer Group-of-Pictures structures can mean longer times before viewable pictures.

If you are after DVB-T2 PCI-E or DVB-S2 PCI-E or USB solutions then ask away. Also Windows and Linux are different beasts - so the recommendations may differ depending on your OS.
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#12
Can't believe I didn't state what I'm actually using.

It's a PCTV 461e (which is the improved successor of the 460e). It's a DVB-S2 USB stick (single input) and works a treat with Argus as per my previous post. They're a pretty good price as well. I got mine for about £50 on Amazon around Christmas.
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#13
Whatever stick I used that had windows drivers worked flawlessly with any windows backend even though I end up using argus which seemed better. I have 2 9015 compatible a a850 and dual pctv all usb.
There's no substitute for experience
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TV Card and backend recommendation please.0