Thoughts on future purchase? (QuattroS)

[CharredPC]

Forgive me if this has been covered previously (I've been away), but I'm building a new kick-butt pc and thought this would make a sweet addition. What do you all think? My thoughts so far: I doubt things like MyTheatre would support it yet, so software would be pretty proprietary... though they do mention BDA drivers here, so I could be wrong. It's slightly expensive (compared to other options), but for an all-in-one DVB-S / DVB-T solution with dual tuners each? Plus it does FM radio, analogue TV, 1080iHDTV and AC3! Hrmm...

They have some other neat stuff there as well, but this is the cream of the crop to me. And on second thought, it's not that expensive. $279 AU = $218.53 US, plus S/H.

 

[Anole]

some caution

Being new, you may have trouble getting 3rd party support for it.
You'd literally be on the bleeding edge.

BDA drivers are not necessarily the be-all, end-all in driver support, from what I've read.

DVB-T for Oz may or may not translate into reception of digital TV in the USA.
(Please look into this matter before assuming it'll work here)

I didn't see the one thing I'd demand in an FTA tuner: blind scan.

On the plus side, if it did all it claims, it'd be pretty attractive.

 

[CharredPC]

Kind of my thoughts as well. Australia is listed as broadcasting in PAL B/G, while US is NTSC M. The card claims to handle both PAL and NTSC, though, so maybe there wouldn't be an issue; it certainly seems like an all-around-purpose card. I know BDA drivers can and do have issues, I'm just thinking of the other DVB cards that are only supported in various universal software because BDA drivers exist.

As far as blind scan goes, I'm pretty sure such a thing doesn't exist for DVB pc cards, except for the infamous Skystar 2 vers. 2.3 cards... and I'd like something new and fast, not something older I'd have to scrounge off Ebay used (if I'm lucky)!

 

[CharredPC]

Here's a somewhat similar device to what I listed, but not from AU: from the UK!

 

[CharredPC]

Well, I wrote to the sales dept on the QuattroS:

To whom it concerns,

I am interested in purchasing a DNTV Live! QuattroS but have a few questions I hope you can answer for me.

I live in the United States. I understand that AU has a different broadcasting specification that the USA (PAL-B/G), but the card's information page states it handles both PAL and NTSC. With that in mind, would it be able to receive NTSC-M signals here?

Secondly, would you ship to my USA address, and if so how much would it cost? I would use my PayPal account to pay immediately.

Thank you very much for your time

I got a very short reply back:

This product is predominantly a DVB solution and of not much use in the USA as you use ATSC for digital TV, while it could be used as analogue tuner device, it is not advisable or supported.

I'm guessing that this means it can't handle our HD stuff, and maybe all our digital is a little "off" from theirs? Rats, that quad tuner concept was really awesome.

 

[dem0nlord]

They are only referring to the DVB-T portion, which is not used here.