[mythtvnz] What DVB-T tuners are people using?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 15:49:44 +1200, you wrote:

>I've currently got a Hauppauge HVR-2200 dual tuner that I think is
>failing, which is understandable as the card is about 12 years old.
>
>I do have a spare Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD USB Tuner I usually have for
>debugging and travelling I can use for now, but I was wondering what is
>popular in the DVB-T area these days. There doesn't appear to be a lot on
>offer.
>
>Steven

There is not much for sale in NZ, and the variety available worldwide
seems to have decreased also.  I am using a TBS6209 8 tuner card:

https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6209-dvb-t2-c2-tc-isdbt-octatv-tuner.html

That is now an older card in the TBS lineup - there are now cards with
even wider multi-standard support such as the TBS6209se (which does
ATSC as well) and the TBS6508 which does not do ATSC but instead does
both all the DVB-T/C standards and all the DVB-S standards.

For my Sky recordings, I am using a TBS6909 8 tuner DVB-S2 card:

https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6909-dvb-s2-8-tuner-pcie-card.html

This is set up to use minisatip to do decryption using my Sky card,
and MythTV uses rtsp: URLs on IPTV tuners to tune the channels via
Sat>IP.  This is not using the v32 Sat>IP support as I was doing it
well before v32.

Both cards are fairly expensive, although I bought both of mine at
sale prices that allowed them to arrive in NZ just under the then GST
limit.

The downside of TBS cards is that you have to compile the drivers
against the kernel each time the kernel is updated.  I have a script
to do that, but it is a pain to have to reboot, run the script and
reboot again.

The upside is that they are very good cards.  The ones I have use one
aerial input for all the tuners, as they have an onboard low noise
amplifier/splitter to give each tuner a good signal level.  Older TBS
boards can still be using the older chipsets that require one aerial
input per tuner so you have to do your own external splitter (and
amplifier) if necessary.

Having 8 tuners, I can dedicate one tuner per multiplex (so there is
no possibility of conflicts), and one tuner for doing MHEG5 EPG
grabbing, and still have two spare tuners which I have set up as
Sat>IP tuners available to any device on my network.

If you want to buy TBS tuners, do a search for the exact card number
and see if they are cheaper anywhere - TBS used to have an Aliexpress
or Ebay site where they sold them direct from the factory in China at
sale prices several times a year.

For my laptop and Windows PCs, I have a variety of older tuners,
mostly USB, that I am using.  I do not think any of them are still
available, but their successor versions may be:

KWorld USB DVB-T TV Stick II
KWorld USB Dual DVB-T stick (Windows only, can only use 1 tuner in
Linux)
AverMedia Duo Hybrid PCIe (analogue and DVB-T) - only 1 tuner is still
working, Windows only
Pinnacle PCTV Nano stick (USB, DVB-T)

I have two of the PCTV Nano sticks and they are the ones I find most
useful as they have a IR receiver that can handle all standard
remotes, so I can use my MCE and Hauppauge remotes (RC6 and RC5
respectively).  I use one on my laptop, and the other wherever I am
testing something.  They have a tiny aerial connector and come with a
plug in converter to Belling-Lee for standard NZ aerial cables, but I
managed to buy a set of better connectors for them so that I have two
Belling-Lee and two F connectors, each on a short lead so that there
is no leverage on the tuner.  The original B-L converters are
one-piece metal construction and the weight of an aerial cable on them
causes huge leverage on the tuner's USB connector if it is plugged
directly into a USB socket instead of on a USB cable.

I believe there are updated versions of the Nano Sticks available
still that do DVB-T2 and work the same way.  Pinnacle is now owned by
Hauppauge.  The drivers for these are now built into the kernel, but
you do need to have the right firmware file installed.  If you want
USB, they would be my recommendation.  But for production systems, I
prefer PCIe cards as I have found that the USB connections can be a
bit unreliable, due to the cables moving and the USB sockets being
less than perfect.  Kids and cats and vacuuming/dusting are the main
problems - the aerial cable moves, which moves the tuner, which moves
the USB connection, and the tuner stops working.

Be aware that as of v32, MythTV has Sat>IP support, so you can have
your tuners in a different box and just run minisatip or TVHeadEnd or
similar and make them into Sat>IP tuners that you can use across the
network.  So an RPi with USB tuners, for example, can be put somewhere
near the aerial connections and as long as it has a good network
connection (Ethernet recommended), you can use its tuners anywhere
else.