Freesat HD card for HTPC

Thinking of purchasing a Freesat HD card for my HTPC. Currently looking at the Hauppage WinTV Nova HD S2 as I kow it'll be future proof (DVB-S2 as opposed to DVB-S).

Anyone got any experience with it or other recommendations?

I have an old Hauppauge WinTV card. It's been rock-solid. When I upgrade to HTPC, I'll certainly be going with Hauppauge.

In reply to a post by dicko1975:

Thinking of purchasing a Freesat HD card for my HTPC. Currently looking at the Hauppage WinTV Nova HD S2 as I kow it'll be future proof (DVB-S2 as opposed to DVB-S).

Anyone got any experience with it or other recommendations?

They are planning an hvr 4400 which hasn't been launched also a dvb t2 device is due apparently before the world cup (their intention!).

Anyhow they are actively working on wintv v7 which is great. The only thing i would say is if you do now buy an oem hauppage product you will find installing wintv v7 slightly impossible due to it requiring an original wintv cd!,

In reply to a post by dicko1975:

Thinking of purchasing a Freesat HD card for my HTPC. Currently looking at the Hauppage WinTV Nova HD S2 as I kow it'll be future proof (DVB-S2 as opposed to DVB-S).

Anyone got any experience with it or other recommendations?

Oh forgot to say - make sure your gfx card can do h.264 decoding otherwise your cpu be having fun decoding instead

Get a Hauppauge WinTV Nova HD S2. That's what I use and it works flawlessly. However, one big warning! Avoid ATI graphics cards with BBC HD. Basically, they don't work reliably. Depending on who you want to believe, BBC encoding, ATI chipset/drivers or Microsoft's decoder or some combination of them are the source of the problem. Nvidia cards do work without a problem and you really do need a relatively recent discrete graphics card. Older cards may not cope at all and on-board graphics (if they work) will have your CPU (and the fan attached to its heatsink) running flat out at times. I use a fanless Nvidia G210. They're cheap and have 6 channel audio out over HDMI (no need for a connection to SPDIF on your Motherboard or sound card).

Cheers for the info Des, that will come in handy over the next couple of months

In reply to a post by Desmond:

Get a Hauppauge WinTV Nova HD S2. That's what I use and it works flawlessly. However, one big warning! Avoid ATI graphics cards with BBC HD. Basically, they don't work reliably. Depending on who you want to believe, BBC encoding, ATI chipset/drivers or Microsoft's decoder or some combination of them are the source of the problem. Nvidia cards do work without a problem and you really do need a relatively recent discrete graphics card. Older cards may not cope at all and on-board graphics (if they work) will have your CPU (and the fan attached to its heatsink) running flat out at times. I use a fanless Nvidia G210. They're cheap and have 6 channel audio out over HDMI (no need for a connection to SPDIF on your Motherboard or sound card).

I believe it was the ati radion 4xxx series causing this problem ..

I'll have to check that. Using an ATI Radeon HD 3450 at the mo.

Edit, according to the blurb, the HD 3450 does support H.264/AVC encoding.

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Feb-10 07:42:19)

Most folks seem to be recommending GBPVR or DVBViewer.

Des,

Currently running an ATI Radeon HD 3450 card. So what you're saying is a bit of a concern!

However, I guess I can try it as it is, and if I get any probs I'll grab another card from Nvidia.

Cheers.