PC Card Primer?

[Greg Mueller]

Is there a primer somewhere for newbies?
Something that starts out real simple

I have a PC all ready to be my entertainment center. It already has Itunes and all my CDs on it and it's just waiting for a tuner card. (Tuner Card right?)

Thanks

 

[starman345]

I've never seen a primer for cards but one may exist. I think for the most part its a learn as you go thing. I read on the various forums people get a card installled and use the software that came with the card first, then move on to one of the more popular third party softwares. If I could give some advice I would just move on to the third party software in the beginning, usually the supplied packages are lacking.
If you don't have a card I would get a dvb-s2 card, they are backward compatible with the dvb-s signals and more and more are moving to the s2 format. Have you decided on whether to get a pci or pci-e or USB? What device do you have in mind?

 

[Greg Mueller]

Have you decided on whether to get a pci or pci-e or USB?

My computer is pretty empty except for a hot rod video card. I was planning to make it a Blu-Ray player (too) and bought an LG Blu-Ray/HD/DVD drive. Then I found out how restrictive Blu-Ray is and decided to get a stand alone player. So I'm pretty wide open. The MB is pretty fast and has on board digital sound stuff

What device do you have in mind?

No idea.
My next question would be to try to figure out who makes "the best" card.

 

[Greg Mueller]

I guess I would like to have one that plugs right into the MB.
They have them now that will decode HD?

 

[starman345]

What video card do you have? The reason I ask is some of them can utilise dxva in h.264, if you use a decoder that supports it.
Dvb cards are different than stb's because it isn't how many features the card has but rather how many features do the drivers support. Its all about driver support with the cards. The cards are all pretty similar...at least until you get to the Skywalker type units that handle a wider range of signals, they are more $$ too though.
BDA drivers seem to be the thing now, almost all the new cards come with that. Tsreader doesn't do BDA so that is one reason I have more than one card, I use my old Twinhan 1020a with that but of course, no s2 with that card. My Dvbworld s2 cards won't work with TSR.
Recently I"ve been looking at the TBS8920 pci and the TBS6920 pci-e, they are bda cards supposed to work with Dvbviewer and a few other applications, also, if Tsreader is a must for you, you might want to have a look at Transedit, it is a nice alternative.
If you didn't want to spend a lot of $$ you could pick up a Twinhan 1020a, I've seen them for $39 on the net. It would give you an idea if a dvb card is the route you really want to take. The 1020a is a nice all around card, pretty good driver support, but of course, no dvb-s2

 

[starman345]

I guess I would like to have one that plugs right into the MB.
They have them now that will decode HD?

I guess we were both posting at the same time Yes, they will all do HD, the cards just pass the data stream to the computer to do the processing.

 

[Greg Mueller]

The video card is an Asus EN8600GT.
It says on the box that it is a 256MB DDR3 card. HDCP compliant with HDMI.
I'm running Windoz XP


What's a TSR?

 

[starman345]

The video card is an Asus EN8600GT.
It says on the box that it is a 256MB DDR3 card. HDCP compliant with HDMI.
I'm running Windoz XP


What's a TSR?

TSR=Tsreader

 

[Greg Mueller]

I don't know what a TSreader is either

 

[starman345]

I'm sorry, not sure where you are in the process, guess you really are just coming out of the gate. Tsreader is a dvb software application. When you purchase a dvb card you need software to use the card. Just like any other pci card, you put it in a pci slot, boot windows and it will recognize it and ask for the drivers, after those are installed, then install your software application that will let you use the card. With a stb your menus that you use to navigate to different features are already in the box, not so with dvb cards, you need software installed on your computer before you can do anything with it.
Some of the more popular apps are MyTheatre, Dvbdream, Dvbviewer, Altdvb, Tsreader and a few others. Dvbdream and Altdvb are free and both are nice.
The first step is getting the card....

 

[Greg Mueller]

Thank you.
After the holidays I'll start moving in that direction.
Going to leave tomorrow (for a couple weeks) to a nice warm spot south of the boarder

 

[starman345]

Thank you.
After the holidays I'll start moving in that direction.
Going to leave tomorrow (for a couple weeks) to a nice warm spot south of the boarder

I'm envious, two weeks where its warm:up

 

[brentb636]

Except that south of his border could be Minnesota !

 

[starman345]

Yea, thats true, but he did say "nice warm spot",and from where I'm sitting, any nice warm spot is to be envied right now.

 

[Greg Mueller]

A couple more terms

A couple more terms I don't know.

PID and MUX

 

[starman345]

Greg, have a scan through this:
COOL.STF

Click on Mpeg2 on the left

 

[Cadsulfide]

Except that south of his border could be Minnesota !

I rember going up to Ontario to visit my folks years ago with my brother....
we stopped along the way for a cold one.......
The bartender asked "What will you have boys, domestic or imported?"....
My brother said "hell give us an import, we're on vacation".....
The bartender brought us two Budweisers.......

 

[boomer_106]

My computer is pretty empty except for a hot rod video card. I was planning to make it a Blu-Ray player (too) and bought an LG Blu-Ray/HD/DVD drive. Then I found out how restrictive Blu-Ray is and decided to get a stand alone player. So I'm pretty wide open. The MB is pretty fast and has on board digital sound stuff




No idea.
My next question would be to try to figure out who makes "the best" card.

I don't have one but, this one is pretty popular. It does S2 and of course 4:2:2 as well as the other standard formats.

http://www.cyberestore.com/satellit...end-s2-3200-mpeg4-dvb-s2-satellite-tuner.html