Have I been a wolly? TV card in computer...

[TonyHetherington]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I just bought a cracking computer (thanks to all of you who helped me on my advice thread). And I decided to get a good screen; 22" 16.7million 3000:1 LG. Result However the way I justified the cost to myself was to decide to use the monitor as a TV/DVD player too and get rid of my big tele in my room.

So I bought that above TV card. On reflection, it's not a freeview card, is it? It will only get me channels 1 > 4, right?

Second point, I have installed it, and receive a signal and can get channels 1 > 4, however, they're very grainy and horrible! Sound is perfect, visual is not. Puzzling. The aerial is perfect; I plug it into a freeview receiver and into a TV and the signal is 100% perfect, so it's not the signal to the board. Is it just a crap board?

So why is it a poor signal, and am I correct in thinking I bought the wrong card (non-freeview)...?

[TonyHetherington]

Ah, so DVB-T is what I should have looked for?

Ok thanks! That's one £20 lesson learnt :S

Anyone have an idea why the signal might be so poor? I tried to earth the outside of the aerial input in case it was static causing it, but no luck

[TonyHetherington]

gizard said:

advert for the card you have is a bit misleading with 'Digital' in the title.

Must admit, I ordered it quickly while ordering my computer, it was a "while I'm there" thing. Stupidly, I didn't check enough. Prat!

What's confusing me though is that with a digital freeview receiver that I had plugged into my tele, it worked perfectly. However the analogue signal that it's now receiving is not perfect. So if I bought a DVB tv card for the computer, would it work perfectly?

[TonyHetherington]

Ah thanks for the info!

I've used from exactly the same aerial a freeview box and a freeview hard drive recorder thingy and they've both been very succesful, with perfect picture, so does it translate that I should just be able to use the same aeiral in a Freeview DVB tv card?

[TonyHetherington]

I'm using the packaged software (the Campro one). I started off with Vista but now using XP, as it didn't work with Media Centre on Vista and I was bored of it crashing all the time, so changed back to XP and the computer's perfect but still the card has a really poor picture.

Could it just be that the card is crap? A one off faulty one?

As you guys have said, other cards seem to do absolutely fine! Having said that, I'll be getting another one anyway as I stupidly didn't get a freeview one, only channels 1>4. So, is the £35 WIN PCI card mentioned above full freeview and works ok?

[TonyHetherington]

Burgmeister said:

a little trick i learnt is to put the card in the pci farthest from your graphics card as it seems to interfere somewhat

Oooo, might be worth a try! I got a graphics card and disabled the onboard one, so it is fairly close!

[TonyHetherington]

Hi,

I was literally just about to post again on this thread!

Thanks VERY much for the info. The result was, of course, that I will need another freeview card because mine, well, isn't. So it will be worth spending the money to do it.

However, as an interim solution I last night managed to hook my old freeview hard drive recorder to the input of the TV card, and just turn it to S-Video for the input on the card's software.

So I'm controlling the freeview receiver which gives me a signal through the TV card and into my monitor. Make sense?

I have to sort the audio tonight but that shouldn't be too much of a problem!

I will, however, at a later date invest in a proper card and the one you mention above, Beanbag, seems like the right way forward!

Thanks again to everyone for the help

[TonyHetherington]

Will I lose picture quality going the route I am (through tv card from freeview receive)?

[TonyHetherington]

Ah ok - I'm glad you said that! It wasn't the best, most crystal clear picture ever when I plugged it in last night and was a bit worried, especially as how good a monitor it is!

DVD's look ace though

So, in the future then, a DVB Freeview card it is. Must stop spending money though

Thanks again !

[TonyHetherington]

Cheers my good man, I might be pur-chasing that little beauty a bit later!

[TonyHetherington]

It does indeed help, cheers BB. I was going to look into them all later but you've answered the questions I was going to ask!

Can't believe you've just made me find another pc-stuff site. Gits

(Yesterday, 400GB SATA II 16mb cache hard drive, couple of new fans (graphics card keeps overheating) and some wires/connectors. Ouch!).

And I have a Lotus, too (cry!)

Seriously though, thanks chaps

[TonyHetherington]

beanbag said:

This is the fella you should get:

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx...

Just purchased the HVR1300 Will let you know next week how I get on with it. Thanks everyone!!

[TonyHetherington]

Hi all

Installed the card last night; brilliant! Picture is great and the set up is really nice.

A few questions though, if I may;

I have this computer;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?pro...

with this graphics card;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?pro...

and this RAM;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?pro...

with this monitor;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?pro...

when I first got the computer, the graphics card was getting ridiculously hot and giving me the BSOD when it went OTT (it took me a while to work out that it was the card getting hot though). So, installed fans front and back of the unit (one in one out) and put a fan right next to the card itself. Now keeps it lovely and cool.

Using the TV card, when in full screen mode if I change channel it takes a very long time (3 seconds) and hangs while doing it. The screen also goes "fuzzy". Not in the traditional sense, but as in horizontal lines momentarily. Is it something wrong with the way I've set it up? To be honest, I don't know abot hardware acceleration etc. so haven't altered anything. After 5 or 6 quick channel flicks, the computer totally freezes I can't do a thing and have to restart. The graphics card is not getting hot.

2nd; is there a decent computer based program guide you can get up on screen? The inscreen one is not great and I can't see there's a "what's on" type guide?!

3rd; thanks all for your help on this, very much appreciated!

Tony

[TonyHetherington]

shameless bump! Anyone...?!

[TonyHetherington]

Hi!
Thanks very much for the detailed reply; muchos appreciatedos.

I disabled the onboard graphics card, yup. I will have a play and reply in much more detail hopefully tomorrow (out for the day now) but, once again, thanks for the detail - it looks like it's something to do with the drivers for the ATI card or even the card itself, then?! I used the drivers on the CD for the card but what I didn't say is that it did it before the TV card was installed on simple stuff like pausing an MPEG playing in Win Media Player so not just TV card specific.

Thanks again
Tony

[TonyHetherington]

Thanks people! Ok unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play with it yesterday however, especially as the issues are present during MPEG play back and mega simple stuff (before I even put the tv card in), it seems like it's the ATI card and it's drivers, huh? Well it only cost me £30 and although I'm not one for chucking away money, would you suggest I get a new card? If so, which one would you suggest?

Is that the best way forward?

I will watch a DVD now and then, will use it as a television now I have the HVR card, and do a lot of photoshop work (mainly why I bought the PC) with approx 30mb PSD files - and that's as major as my work ever gets, I don't do games.

Once again thanks for your help; really appreciate the time.

[TonyHetherington]

Innocent bump if I could trouble you guys for your advice pretty please thank you