Need a new tuner - what to buy?

[ybrew]

I need a new tuner before the fall season starts. I've got 2 Hauppauge 500 dual tuners in my system already. Those work fine. I've also got 2 fusion HDTV USB tuners and I've had problems for some time getting both of those to work reliably at the same time. I need two more tuners for OTA channels only. I had an HD Homerun a few years ago, but it died on me. I'm considering either another HD Homerun or a Hauppauge HVR-2250.

No matter what I get, it'll be connected OTA w/ my attic antenna.
Does one of them have better tuners than the other?

One of the biggest pros of the HVR-2250 is the fact that it'd be an internal card and wouldn't require yet another item to be plugged into my surge protectors. But that's relatively minor.
Whatever I do, I'll likely get rid of one of my fusion HDTV USB tuners and will end up with 7 tuners total.

System is WinXP SP3, Core2 Duo E6750 (2.66ghz) w 4GB RAM running sagetv 7.12.

[ybrew]

Just saw this thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...light=hvr+2250

I think I suffered from too strong a signal from my previous HDHomerun, but JasonL said:

"The tuner/demod in the newer HDHomeRun revision (device IDs starting with 1013 and higher) is extremely difficult to overload. We've tested performance to roughly +40dBmV and seen no ill effects. This would be roughly 170% signal strength, and is strong enough that most amplifiers would overload before the tuner ever would."

I'm pretty close to the antennas, if that makes any difference in my decision.

[Fuzzy]

too strong of a signal is easy to fix with inline attenuators. If that was your only problem with the HDHomeRun, I'd give it another shot. That said, If you've got a PCI-e x1 slot available in your system, that may be the way to go... Just to keep everything internal.

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

too strong of a signal is easy to fix with inline attenuators. If that was your only problem with the HDHomeRun, I'd give it another shot. That said, If you've got a PCI-e x1 slot available in your system, that may be the way to go... Just to keep everything internal.

I tried attenuators with the old HD Homerun, but I remember silicondust saying the latest hardware revision greatly improved things.

I'm happy to say they were right.

Got my HD Homerun working perfectly. I kinda like having most stuff external, simply so i'm not taxing the computer powersupply. I'd kinda like another HD Homerun now, but I do have 3 good OTA tuners (one of my fusionHDTVs and the HD Homerun) and not really sure I need a 4th. I've had conflicts with only 3 in the past but I doubt I will this coming year. I can always get another one in future if need be.

Very happy with the new HD Homerun though.

[tmiranda]

How do you check if the signal strength is too high?

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

How do you check if the signal strength is too high?

When I was having problems with my old tuner, I contacted silicondust support and they were able to look at my debug logs.

I probably could have gotten a replacement from them (out of warranty, but a cheaper paid repair instead of buying new) but I never got around to that - and not sure I even know where my old one is now. My original HD Homerun was also several years old when I contacted support (I contacted them around the time of the digital cutover. The local stations must have upped their signals around the same time, overloading my HD Homerun). But they told me then what I posted in the 2nd post - that the new ones were a lot more difficult to overload.

The tuners in this new hd homerun are FAR superior to my original. Very happy.

[tmiranda]

Thanks for the info. Can I assume from this that SiliconDust can check if the strength is too high by inspecting the logs?

Tom

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Thanks for the info. Can I assume from this that SiliconDust can check if the strength is too high by inspecting the logs?

Tom

You'd need to open a support request and they'd need the Device ID. I believe you'd also need to enable "send diagnostic information to silicondust support" in the setup program. then yes - they'd be able to tell you all kinds of things about your HD Homerun.

Depending on how old your HD Homerun is and what kind of problems you might be having, it might be worth it to try the beta drivers to see if that fixes any problems you're having.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

How do you check if the signal strength is too high?

The RIGHT way would be with a signal strength meter. they aren't cheap (good ones, at least)