An HD Homerun or Two HVR-1800's for QAM

[dmiraclejr]

I have an M780 that will not tune QAM in Sage with XP SP2 (I don't want to switch to Vista right now) so I want to get either a HD Homerun or 2 of the HVR-1800. My cable system is a small municipally owned one whose general manager says will have analog signals for at least 5 years+ (so the analog tuners of the 1800 will be of use). So for about $170 dollars or so I could get a HDHR with 2 tuners for QAM or for about $200 I could get 2 1800's and have 2 QAM and 2 analog tuners.

My main objective is getting good, reliable QAM recording.

Also note that I have the slots for the 1800's available in my server and that I might need to use the digital tuners for OTA one day (50 miles from towers) if I ever switch back to DirecTV (does one have better OTA sensitivity than the other?).

Thanks for any guidance you all may give.

[blade]

I have a HDHomeRun and 2 1600s and QAM tuning on the 1600s are horrible compared to the HDHomeRun. No idea how the 1800s compare.

[geogecko]

Well, I have no experience with the HVR-1800, but it has been my experience, that I have had problems with both PCI (regular) and USB recording devices on my computer. It could be the computer, but I started with FusionHDTV PCI cards, then after not being able to get those glitch-free, bought two FusionHDTV5 USB's, and had them working great for a long time, then all of a sudden, they got picky, and wouldn't work sometimes...then it depended on which USB port they were in...I gave up, and bought the HDHR, and have been absolutely pleased with it. It's a great price for a dual turner, and on top of that, it doesn't have to be located within or connected to, your HTPC or server.

[SprDtyF350]

I went from a HVR-1600 that I could never get to reliably tune HD to a HD Homerun. Like night and day. The HD Homerun just works. It tunes quickly, gets channels that my HDTV can't even get, and does not have the blocky effect the HVR-1600 had. Makes me wish I had of started with it. Wasted lots of time to never get the HVR-1600 to work right..

[wirecreative]

Just to balance things out, I've never tried the HR, but have two 1800s that have been doing just fine (although the set-up was a little tricky).

I sometimes get a better HD picture through the cable-fed QAM on the 1800s than I do straight from my STB to the TV.

[morgandc]

I have an HDHR, love it, but nothing to compare it to.

-Dwight

[dmiraclejr]

It sounds like the HDHR may be the way I want to go but I am leary of adding the extra failure points (switch, cables, etc) that an external, network tuner would introduce that an internal HVR-1800 would not. It sounds like that has not been a problem and that the HDHR is easier to administer and possibly locks on to more clear QAM than other tuners. I guess Newegg will let me try it for 30 days to see for myself.

Anyway, thanks for all the great info folks. It is greatly appreciated