Re: [OT] Freeview card - Blackgold or Nebula

["David Amphlett" <dave_yahoo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Had a nebula card for over a year now - and have tried various
combinations of software to get what I want.

Originally played with myHTPC before getting the TV card, then tried
to patch myHTPC and the DigiTV software (that is supplied by Nebula)
together.

My feeling is that if you're going to have a PC/TV, then you might as
well be able to view/play your photos/mpegs/ripped cd's etc as well
as watch TV with it. otherwise you might as well just get one of the
set-top boxes with hdd's built in.

Anyway, the myHTPC development stopped while the main guys behind it
did a commercial product - so when Meedio came out I brought that.
Reasonably good and possibly worth the money, but not very elegant to
integrate with DigiTV (they're bringing out their own TV software so
can't see them making it any easier to do either).

Next I heard about ShowShifter - so I brought that (if you can see a
pattern here, so could my wife :( ). Now the first thing that
suprised me about ShowShifter is that the TV picture is better than
using the DigiTV software that the manufactures of the nebula card
wrote themselves! My untrained eye can't explain why it looks better,
but it clearly does. Secondly, ShowShifter has CD playing, video/mpeg
playing, photo viewing as well as the TV watching and recording
facility - so that's good. Also, the GUI itself is nice - DigiTV is
ok too, but I have a slight preference for ShowShifter.

The only downside to ShowShifter was that getting the EPG (Electronic
Program Guide) loaded up for the UK was a-kin to soldering together
your own motherboard, whereas with the DigiTV software it works 'out
of the box' like a dream.

Now the penultimate installment in this (rather long) post, is that a
new version of ShowShifter came out recently. The GUI has been
improved - quite nice->rather nice. The picture quality still seems
to be better than DigiTV. But best of all, the EPG picks up the data
transmitted with the channels, so there's no EPG downloading
required. The net effect is the EPG is now slightly better than
DigiTV's. Also, the recording options are slightly better - wife
finds it easier to use to record programs than DigiTV.

Now for the last bit. I recommend you get a PVR setup - it's
fantastic - who knew there were so many great old films on at 3 in
the morning - I've already got over 200Gb's of films recorded now -
next time I'm off work ill I don't have to watch richard and
judy :) ....

but the all of a sudden it becomes a real pain not to be able to
record one program and watch a different channel. I'd say virtually
anyone who gets this sort of system setup will rapidly feel the need
for a dual tuner (ie two DVB cards) setup. BUT I can't find any
software that currently supports two nebula cards :( ...

... but the next version of DigiTV is suposed to support it. - but
who knows when that will come out (possibly first half of this year)
and DigiTV doesn't have all the nice stuff ShowShifter does - oh
choices choices.

Bottom line is that the nebula card is great quality and works well
with the DigiTV software. It (in my opinion) works better with the
ShowShifter software. But it's all about the software - that's the
real choice you need to make, and work back from there to the card!

My setup:

Phillips 17" LCD TV
2.4 Athlon XP home built PC with a big quite heatsink/fan and
acoustic lining in the case
really cheap IR receiver and an All-In-One remote
Windows XP Pro
WinIRC - to listen to remote
Girder - to allow remote to control ShowShifter
ShowShifter 3.10.something software
100mb networking
400Gb fileserver under the stairs :)

Currently PC is under the TV, but it's stable enough now (earlier
versions of DigiTV and ShowShifter were flaky) that I'm prepared to
file it in Node Zero) - just got to get round to it.




--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Ho Yin Ng" <yahoogroups@h...>
wrote:
> Anyone have any preference or recommendations on what card I should
get for
> my HTPC?
>
>
>
> Been reading some reviews but there does not seem to be much to
choose
> between them!
>
>
>
> So any pointers from experience would be much appreciated.
>
>
>
> I won't be running MCE2005 I have had some bad stories about it
just going
> to stick to XP and use a from end PVR like showshifter?
>
>
>
> If that is still required with one of these cards installed?
>
>
>
> Got my new TV .. just got to get my other equipment setup!
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Ho yin
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]