Best HDTV Tuner card?

[billygoat333]

I searched the forums and I didnt see a thread to help me, anyways I was thinking about making a mythTV box and was wondering if anyone had any good experiences with certain HDTV cards that they could recommend? I have never really even looked at them so I am not sure what I need. I do want HD capabilities, for sure. :P

EDIT: also, are usb tuners any good? my ex father in law had one for his laptop and it seemed pretty nice, just never really got around to checking it out myself.

[mtekk]

Well, I have the WinTV-HVR-2250, which is a dual tuner, that has dual hardware MPEG2 encoders for analog channels (which is about pointless for me now that Mediacom provides clear QAM simulcasts of all of their analog channels) and supports Clear QAM and ATSC. I also have the PCTV 800i (was Pinnacle now part of Hauppauge), it is a single tuner card that does not have a hardware MPEG2 encoder for analog channels and also supports Clear QAM and ATSC

For digital you don't need a hardware encoder (the bit stream is already encoded (MPEG2 or MPEG4), so we just dump it to the hard drive :)). Both of the cards are low profile, the HVR-2250 is a PCIe-x1 card, the PCTV 800i is a PCI card. The HVR-2250 has an internal splitter for it's two tuners, so one cable will allow you to record two channels simultaneously (the main reason I got it). Both have Linux drivers now (the other reason I got the HVR-2250, though the analog driver is not there for it, again that does not concern me).

I like the HVR-2250 the most, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a good PCIe-x1 analog/digital TV tuner.

[billygoat333]

Thanx for the response, gonna check it out. Def. like the dual tuner card, glad it gets your blessing. will have to do some shopping around!

[Mark_Hardware]

+1 on the 2250. I have one as well. It comes with a program to watch tv as well, but honestly I prefer wmc. Hauppauge offers the 2250 with a mce remote, remote reciever/ir blaster, that allows you to control another device, such as a tv. I have never used the blaster (no need) and to be honest haven't played with the remote alot except to see that it works (I have a diiferent remote I use for my pc.)
I'm unsure of actual "HD" receiving, but it does have dual digital tuners, so you should be good there.
So there is my long winded way of agreeing with mtekk :up: