TV turner card

levitronix

Im looking for advice on a good TV turner card , i wana get rid of UPC and just use kodi and a TV turner card

Is there a pci card that will use a cable from a satellite dish, anyone using one ?

tonyfillony

Im using a blackgold BGT3602
it can receive both saorview and freeview.
For saorview it is connected to an aerial on the roof and then for freeview it works off a sky dish.
Only draw back i can find is that it only has windows drivers , but apart from that it is solid

captain_boycott

+1 for the blackgold BGT3602. Been in my system since Feb, and not missed a single recording, its been flawless.

As previous poster says, it gets Saorview and FreeSat channels.

Have it installed on main PC, and then i have 3 kodi clients ( 2 x RPI2 and NUC) connected to TVs around the house.

The real nifty thing about this card is that I've never been able to max it out, that is, I can watch / record several Saorview and Freesat channels simultaneously. At one stage, I was recording 5 Saorview channels, plus BBC at the same time!

levitronix

great guys just what i was looking for, only reviews on other cards i could find was from UK customers and i was unsure if stuff they used would work:)

levitronix

One more question is there a remote compatible?

Dravokivich

That'll be down to what you are looking to do with Kodi itself. As the remote will be controlling that. It can accept MCE remotes. It's possible to set up remotes for it with FLIRC.

You may find some useful info in this part of their forums:

http://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=110

tonyfillony

Im using a flirc in combination with my harmony 600 remote , I then also use a wireless logitech keyboard for when i need to do more intricate things like setting up repository's

levitronix

I ment a remote with the pci e card for the satellite tv, I can just use the steam controller companion and use xbox 360 wireless controller for a bit or just wireless mouse, but rest of family would prefer remote

Dravokivich

You'll be viewing it in kodi. Anything you use will be controlling that. Easiest thing to do would be try to get an MCE remote.

captain_boycott

You'll need software to tune and receive the channels from the TV tuner card. Some options on Windows include WMC, Mediaportal, Argus, NextPVR - there's many others. You can view using the native front ends these packages provide, or put everything thru a Kodi client, if the backend supports it. Thats that you will drive via a remote, not the card itself.

whowantstwoknow

Just jumping on this thread....

I too am looking to drop UPC but was thinking of replacing it with a linux receiver. I currently have an aging (hardware) windows HTPC which is acting up and not family friendly.

If I got this card, would it be best to keep windows, or install a UNIX OS onto the machine and built my own receiver? I dont mind replacing some of the hardware component if its not up to the job, ie things like:

1) motherboard/RAM
2) SDD (for speed/quiteness)

If it can become family friendly that would be great, because I was looking at €300 for a replacement receiver...

Any thoughts?

PS: This thread has an attachment which outlines the HTPC spec. Note it has since been upgraded to windows 7

Johnboy1951

I use TBS cards exclusively due to the availability of cross platform drivers.

In my case I use two cards ..... dual tuner cards ..... one each for Terrestrial and Satellite.

The OS I use is an Openelec community version with drivers included. Openelec is built to provide Kodi in a light weight OS.
There is a version with OpenSource drivers also, which are reported to give better performance than the proprietary drivers.

The cards come with their own remote.

TBS6280 PCI-E DVB-T2 Dual TV Tuner Card
TBS6981 PCI-E DVB S2 HD Dual Tuner Card

I bought them from Dabs .... but are probably available elsewhere at a little less (yes they are dear).

@whowantstwoknow ....... my tuner backend PC with those cards, is an old dual core pentium Dell machine which was being dumped last Xmas.
It does not need to be anything better as it is not used for displaying to TV, only for other client devices to connect to it.

This thread has some details which might be of some interest to you
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057423454

levitronix

Hi all just setting up my tuner now and I'm kinda lost , I have to select which satellite I'm going to scan from a huge drop down list ? Anyone know which one I should chose

Wheeker

levitronix wrote: »

Hi all just setting up my tuner now and I'm kinda lost , I have to select which satellite I'm going to scan from a huge drop down list ? Anyone know which one I should chose

Freesat? That's it on your screengrab- Astra 28.2 E

levitronix

I only lined up the dish by line of sight, so I'm still finding nothing, might need a sat finder at this stage

levitronix

We ll got it dialled in today, didn't use a satfinder meter just got lucky and used signal strength to further dial it in better