PC Tuner cards

PC Tuner Cards

Following the acquisition of a nice new 42 inch LCD TV, I decided to enter the world of multimedia PCs, and I purchased a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-4000 internal PCI card for my PC. This is a high end card, and I believe the card works fine - but I was hugely disappointed by the software support for the card and the functionality of TV tuner cards in general. This started some research into this field, and on this page I'll share some of my experiences. In summary, my brief recommendation is ... don't do it! Buy a set-top box instead.

Firstly, my requirements for a multimedia appliance running on my PC attached to my LCD screen:

TV viewing
TV recording, with pause (ie continues recording to hard disk, but can stop/start at will)
Play downloaded mpeg4 video files
View photos, slide-shows
Play MP3 files
Weather forecast feed
Operation through large icon interface (I didn't want to use a remote, just the cursor keys or mouse on a remote keyboard)

The Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-4000 card has great all-in-one specs:

Satellite DVB-S (and DVB-S2 though this is not broadcast in NZ) - this is the main reason I purchased the card
Terrestrial DVB-T (future - DVB-T was not broadcasting in NZ when I bought the card)
Terrestrial analog
AV input / analog capture
FM

This is about the end of the good news. I installed the card and the bundled Cyberlink PowerCinema v5 software and then spent weeks trying to get the thing to work properly. I searched forums for advice, and got called an idiot by the gentleman who runs Freeviewshop (I won't be buying anything from them again - being called an idiot is never good for customer relations!) who told me I hadn't set the card up properly and didn't know what I was doing. Subsequent research on my part revealed that he had only set the card up with DVB-T on PowerCinema, which works fine. Other NZ users had identical problems to myself, and to the best of my knowledge the problems exist - in short, Cyberlink PowerCinema does not properly support use of the HVR-4000 card in NZ. So I started to investigate other software options. The notes below are the results of my investigations. The comments are not exhaustive - mainly because I become exhausted trying so many things that were frustratingly not working. Also note that many packages have been through one or more release upgrades since I did my experimentation about 12 months ago, and may have improved (it would be hard not to).

TV Tuner Card software

Cyberlink PowerCinema 5 (v6 has since been released, I haven't tried it) - this is the software that came bundled with the card. My comments:

Works ok scanning and playing Terrestrial analog TV and DVB-T, after you download and install a couple of undocumented patches from the internet. (If you don't download the patches you get sound and no video, or video and no sound).
DVB-S does not work in NZ. Appears to be a problem setting LNBs. There isn't anywhere to enter these settings in the software, and clearly NZ Optus D1 satellite and common LNB frequencies (I use dual LNB) are not part of the hidden internal database.
Interface is very nice, probably the best of all software I looked at. However, it displays annoying popup adverts in the bottom corner and I couldn't find a way to turn this off. The software was properly registered.
Very slow scanning for channels - like 15 minutes or more. On initial setup it would do a scan, find TV channels, but on first use the settings appeared to be lost and it had to scan again. At 10 minutes or more each time. Every time a scan is done the results of previous scan are lost. Really annoying.
Analog AV capture appeared to work, but didn't seem to recognise wide-screen mode.
Ability to set up video libraries, photo library, weather forecast feed (though settings seemed to get lost every time I closed the application).
A bit buggy, fell over a number of times. Settings seemed to get lost
As I couldn't get DVB-S to work, which was the main reason I purchased the card, I gave up on this software.

WinTV v6 - this was available for download from the Hauppauge site, and supported the HVR-4000 card. Required additional patches to be downloaded to work properly (details found on forums).

Could enter LNB frequencies, scan and found DVB-S channels ok. Worked well on DVB-S finding all the NZ FreeView channels.
Analog TV didn't work, neither did the AV capture input.
FM radio worked fine, though required a separate icon.
Interface wasn't great.

At this stage between the two software applications I had tested that all functions of the hardware worked ok, but through several disparate software applications (which couldn't both run at once). So I continued looking for other software.

ProgDVB v5.12 (this has since been upgraded to v6, which I haven't tried) - excellent software which worked fine for DVB-S. Received and played all NZ freeview signals easily. I only used the shareware version, which had a restricted set of features. The professional V6 version appears to have many additional features including internet TV. I found this software easy to use and bug free, but it only did DVB-S and the interface didn't support any other media types. Good, but not fulfilling my needs.

DVB Viewer v3.9.2 - this software was highly recommended and I paid a few dollars to get the registered version. It was necessary to manually amend a couple of ini files to register the NZ Optus D1 satellite frequencies. DVB Viewer become my favourite software, but it was still far short of what I wanted. Comments:

Scanned and worked with Freeview DVB-S
Subsequently found all the Terrestrial DVB-T Freeview channels
Good support from the developer in Germany
No support for the analog functions of the card (Analog TV, FM), and no interface to other videos or photos. The interface was ok, but designed for a PC keyboard, and I still don't know my way round the softkeys for certain functions.

GBPVR - a friend recommended this softare. It is not as developed as the other products above, but had some good points:

Nice interface, rivalling PowerCinema
Support for multimedia files, photos, videos and other feeds
Worked ok with DVB-S, but at that time had no support for the Terrestrial or DVB-T features of the card

Other Software I didn't Try

MythTV - designed for Linux, not Windows
Media Portal - this looked very promising, offering a full media centre interface. However, my tests with early betas found it very hard to set up and I was never able to get it going properly. Appeared complex to configure, and I was confused between MediaPortal and TV Server. If it stabilises and setup and configuration is easier this may be worth investigating further.
Microsoft Windows Media Centre - this is a special version of Windows. I could not determine for certain whether NZ satellite frequencies were supported, or the Hauppauge card, and whether it was configurable; and I didn't want a special version of Windows. However, once set up users seemed to find the integrated Media Centre interface easy to use.

Lessons Learnt

Don't do it!
I don't consider the software support for PC TV tuner cards sufficiently developed. Sure, a geek will get something working, but it is hard. I didn't want a PC on all the time, but the Windows start-up time of several minutes is too long to wait to watch TV.
Buy a set-top box (Satellite or Terrestrial HD, with or without PVR capability).
If you want a multimedia PC, consider a laptop. They are small and quiet.
Investigate the hardware card carefully. Hauppauge cards may not be the best option. I have certainly nothing good to say about assistance from the Cyberlink support centre or forums, which is the software bundled with Hauppauge cards. Friends have had good results with USB TV tuners for DVB-T. Currently in NZ DVB-T seems a much better option that DVB-S, which has an uncertain future roadmap. As always, try and check out the functionality of the card and software before you buy it, or obtain on evaluation which allows you to return it if it doesn't meet your needs.
Multiple cards in a PC may be a better option that one multifunction card. One card for DVB-S, one for DVB-T. This allows you to simultanesouly record two different channels (the Hauppauge HVR-4000 can only view/record with one tuner at once). Most software above seem to support multiple TV tuner cards.
Have a good look at internet TV, eg AnyTV. The quality isn't the same, and they will chew up internet bandwidth, but potentially they offer access to thousands of more channels than you'll pick up from the sky.

Final Comments

I use the multimedia PC frequently, but rarely use it for watching TV and I have never used it for recording TV. I use it playing downloaded videos, watching internet TV, playing other media, slideshows, watching video's from youtube, etc. I will revew the latest versions of some of the above software applications again, but I'm still looking for the ideal application. I haven't made any comments about TV quality of the different software packages above. The quality in full screen mode was always suitable for my needs, but there were noticable quality differences between the different software packages (all using the same tuner card).