On Fri, 28 Dec 2007, Ralph Shumaker wrote:
Richard Reynolds wrote:
and this doesnt even touch on the fact that if your really recording over
the air broadcasts in any area near the san diego county line your just
doing it wrong....
Then I guess I've been doing it wrong for years. What free alternative do
you suggest?
Ive given this post a significant amount of time, not because I dont have
answers to the technical questions, not because I dont have experience using a
PVR or many PVR's but because of one part "What free alternative do you
suggest?" no matter how much we might want to push the bottom line nothing is
free. IF you have already bought this card, then you spent money on it, if you
havent then you will have to spend some money on the alternative. its not free.
even if you got this card free by some means like a gift, the electricity is not
free to run it. For the technical portions please see below, but for the other
response. If you bought this card for over the air recording you bought the
wrong one plane and simple, your money would have better been spent buying one
of a zillion others, many that already decode the digital signal. most out there
now even come with there own antenna not the FM radio antenna that comes with
several of these designed for audio only, but a real antenna It would be nice in
the san diego area if these antenna's rotated either automatically or
programatically none that I know of do. But you can purchase antenna rotators
that do. This line of cards does not predate the digital airways push,
purchasing these cards means you should have understood there limits as they
were boxed.
Then I feel I have to clairify somethings, this was a thread specifically about
the Hauppauge PVR-x50 lines and over the air broadcasts, this specifically
*excludes* any other cards by Hauppauge or any other manufacturer. And excludes
any source other than over the air, have cable from the cable company and your
exempt from this.
Now as for the fun stuff.
While not free, the best picture, channel selection and use of these specific
cards is to get the cheapest cable TV if you can get it doing so allows you to
use cheaper cards(like the PVR-x50) to capture TV and provides a more reliable
higher quality signal.
The next step if you have not bought the cards yet is to buy a different capture
card one that does better at uhf/vhf decoding, the chosen line here is not
really that great at it, look for ones with there own antenna (but not
perminently fixed on) most are not omni-directional so depending on where in the
county you live you may need to pick which card records off which channel
If you have bought the cards and either cheap cable is unavalible or still
unwanted the other alternative is to buy one of the many digital converter
boxes. If you get a digital decoder box that has an antenna (again avoid the
fixed antennas) you may use that. otherwise buy or build an antenna for
each tuner you have, again depending on where in the county you live pick one
tunner for each station or set of stations to match the antenna direction. Or
alternatively buy or build an antenna tunner yourself, a Hint if you think you
might be able to build one yourself a simple servo will do just fine and are
controllable for chaep thru the usb or LPT ports thru linux see the LDP HAM
guides. these digital antennas are not as large as the older style TV antennas
and so the weight is very low a hitec HS-422 will do just fine.
conspiricy fans
you will of course be able to record on the currently fox channel 6 for a LONG
time as they will not be converting to digital.
(And why does it seem that you loathe punctuation?)
Sure but that doesn't mean my answers are wrong.
Richard Reynolds
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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