AutumnWave / OnAir USB HDTV Tuners - Page 4

I'm very new to all of this and am in the process of building a HTPC. I had been considering the ATI HDTV Wonder card but came across this thread for the OnAir tuners. From what I understand, I don't think I am too excited about using MCE on my system.

From the sounds of it, any of the OnAir tuner products do not require MCE and perhaps work better without it (analog and Digital recording), is this correct?


I'm using the MSI K8NGM2-FID motherboard. Will this work with the OnAir tuners (Nvidia 6150 integrated video)?

Why would I pick one of their products (GT or Creator) over the other?

I would like to output the video to a 42" LCD via HDMI or composite inputs, does the video come directly from the OnAir box or from the computer video card?

Thanks
Kurt

Correct

With the OnAir software, you will be able to make full use out of the hardware.
With the MCE app:
- one requires a hardware MPEG2 encoding device for analog signals
- on the digital side, the device must utilize BDA drivers ... and the BDA does not yet support QAM


No first hand knowledge, but I can't imagine why not.


Ryan actually produced/provided a comparison chart of the devices on Autumnwave, but for a quick rundown:
- GT has smaller form factor; perhaps more portable
- both utilize the same frontend (tuning section), so reception capabilities between the two should (theoretically) be the same ... but as variation can exist even between two exact same devices, it would be more proper to say that reception characteristics would be similar (suffice it to say that any differences would be negligible anyways)
- for analog sources, the creator has a hardware mpeg2 encoder ... whereas the GT is strictly software encoder
- GT is powered via the USB, whereas the Creator utilizes a seperate DC input


From the video card

Does anyone have or know if you have the Buffalo Linktheater can it play the recorded programs of the OnAir USB Creator?

Until recently, Windows Media Center 2005 would not install a digital HD tuner unless there was present in the system an analog tuner that did "hardware" MPEG encoding. Microsoft thought that an analog tuner that did "software" encoding would take up too much CPU power, and reduce overall system performance. A tuner with a hardware encoder did its own video processing, and left the CPU alone. Of course, when a digital HD tuner is running, the CPU doesn't have to do much work.

I've read recently that the latest Windows Updates for Windows Media Center 2005 will allow the installation of a combo analog/digital tuner card even where the analog tuner part is a software encoder. I have't done this myself, so I don't know if it's true or, if it does install, whether the resultant analog video is very good. In the case where WMCE does now install sofware encoders, I would suspect that the analog video from a combo tuner card like the OnAir GT would be just fine if the CPU is pretty powerful or is a dual core processor.



Windows Media Center is great at running different brands and models of TV tuners. In plain Windows XP systems with differenct model TV tuners, you would have to run the software that came with each model of tuner, unless you used something like SageTV.

So, no, OnAir does not require WMCE. OnAir's software works just fine in WinXP. Yet, there are situations when WMCE would work great with multiple different tuners.

I don't see any particular reason why the K8NGM2 motherboard would not work with either OnAir model. It would be preferable if you used a separate PCI express graphics card instead of the builtin graphics. For instance, an ATI Radeon 1600 XT would do just fine.

Also, as video file processing is heavy lifting for a CPU, you should go with a later version of the AMD Athlon 64. A dual core chip would ensure great performance as well.


As was said, the TV program from the tuner gets to the LCD via the graphics engine. Between the HDMI and composite inputs, you should definitely go with the HDMI. HDMI is digital as is your computer.

I think your K8NGM2 comes with an adapter card with a DVI out port. If you use the builtin graphics, you certainly would use this DVI adapter in one of the slots.

Of course, if you buy a separate graphics card for the PCI Express slot, you will have one or two DVI out ports on the card itself.

In either case, to complete the connection to the LCD, you will need a DVI to HDMI converter/adapter, and use an HDMI cable. Or, get a cable with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other end.

I can't understand why people who haven't personally tried with success to run MCE with no hw-MPEG analog tuner (ever) in their machines keep repeating this (evidently false) rumor that MCE now magically has this capability. I've seen no one yet claim [Ed.: from his/her own experience] that a hw-MPEG virgin PC has successfully installed a DTV tuner under any version of MCE short of the Vista beta.

Ryan, you may be right about the source of the rumor. I understand that AIW tuners have a "hacked driver" with which they can be used under MCE by themselves. AFAIK, that driver is specific to the ATI card however. I personally would love for this situation to change but I won't begin to believe that it has until I see a firsthand report rather than another echo of the rumor.

Thanks everyone for your thorough replys.

So from a functional perspective, it sounds like the only difference between the GT and Creator products is that the GT has a software MPEG2 encoder and the Creator has a hardware MPEG2 encoder.

This difference would only come into play if I were trying to encode an external analog input with the Creator offering better performance provided I was using the XP with OnAir software as MCE will not work with GT's software MPEG2 encoder.

As far as differences between the two OnAir products and the ATI HDTV Wonder product, from what I can tell, they are:

1. ATI is Digital OTA only
2. OnAir is Analog & Digital OTA plus QAM

Does ATI HDTV Wonder have a MPEG2 encoder and if so, is it Hardware or Software?

One thing I like about the GT product is it's portability. Each of my two kids has a networked PC in their room. It should be possible to move the OnAir GT from PC to PC to turn it into a HDTV. This would be nice if one of them has a friend sleep over and they want to watch TV in their bedroom.

This raises another question. Is there a way possible to hook a OnAir GT/Creator to a HTPC which then in turns acts as a HDTV server streaming video to the other PCs on my wireless network?

Thanks again

Check out the combination of TSReader and VLC for streaming video from a tuner using a BDA driver over your LAN (but don't count on streaming HDTV over a WiFi link).

Thanks again for the responses!

OK, I'm sold on the OnAir products.

Now I must decide which one to buy, the GT or Creator. Since I'll be sticking with XP, it seems that unless I plan on converting a lot of old home videos or other analog sourced material to DVDs, the GT is the way to go.

Am I missing anything?

It has been true since last fall that ATI's All In Wonder cards will install and run in Windows Media Center 2005 with the TV tuner working. The AIW tuners are software encoders.

But, these are not "hacked drivers". These are official drivers released by ATI and downloadable from ATI.

Could we get an explanation of what sets the OnAir GT apart from the USB tuners by VBOX and DVICO. It looks like it's more expensive.

The OnAir GT also includes nVidia's high-performance mpeg filter decoders, which the other manufacturer's don't.

This alone adds to the cost, but, it clearly makes a marked performance and quality benefit that only the GT has right now.

OK, I'm going to ask a question, even if it's a stupid question. My new GT seems to be working fine, 2.99 software installed fine - but I can't pause or rewind live OTA HDTV at all. When I click on the remote, the computer just beeps (as in "No."). When I click on the button for pause or rewind -- nothing. What am I missing?

P.S. It acts this way on both computers where I've installed the GT software.

Ryan--

Unfortunately, I've not used any of your products, so I can't comment on them comparatively. I have used both VBOX and (extensively) DVICO tuners though. The VBOX depends upon 3rd-party sw (MCE or otherwise) to run its BDA drivers and, therefore, it has no QAM capability. However, its drivers seem to work very well with the other parties' sw to take advantage of all of their OTA PVR functions.

The DVICO FusionHDTV products use the latest LG tuner too, and have very good OTA reception, but I suspect some of their USB units are guilty of exceeding the USB spec on power draw, as you charged. (I'm unaware of any actual damage that this has caused, however, as I believe that the hw USB port drivers are designed to protect themselves even from outright short circuiting)

FusionHDTV products also have BDA drivers, so they can be used with any of the 3rd-party sw, but they also have bundled sw that includes clear-QAM capablity. DVICO took over 2 years to get a relatively bug-free PVR package on the market, but IMO it is today a useable and relatively reliable PVR--which does work very well with standby (S3) and hibernate (S4) sleep states. IMO, these are must-have features of any PVR sw. (Their biggest problem now is that they keep adding new features of questionable value [IMO] that sometimes introduce new bugs!) There is even a freeware addon for FusionHDTV (and MyHD) called Record_This, written by AllenDB and supported on AVS Forum that uses free TV listings from Zap2It for TiVo-type recording of ongoing series and such.

Others didn't mention MyHD (perhaps because that has no USB version). Elsewhere, some have called MyHD "the gold standard" of PC PVR hw and sw, and I (with some bias, as a team member on the CW EPG project) would agree. Despite having now-dated hw and a tuner that's perhaps not quite as sensitive and robust as the latest from LG, the MyHD MDP-130 is very easy to install and use. For the many folks who use QAM rather than OTA, the tuner sensitivity difference is moot. It's also rock solid in reliability. And coupled with CW EPG (another AVS Forum-supported freeware) its feature set is pretty much as complete as anybodys.

I think I get it now - you have to be recording already to pause live TV. I guess it threw me off because the buttons were available (not grayed out) when I was simply watching live. Plus I've been trained by Tivo to press pause whenever I want.

Next dumb question - is there any way to integrate a guide for OTA channels into the viewer? Or do you always have to schedule OTA recordings by start time/stop time rather than program name?

I've updated WatchHDTV to support the GT. If you want to try it out, send me a PM with an email where I can send it to you.

Ryan P.

I have the GT and love it. Any chances of a PCI version coming out with that chipset?

~ Ben

I got the GT a couple of days ago and have been using it with a Toshiba M55-S325 and an outside antenna. The Toshiba only has TI integrated graphics, but I can see nothing wrong with the picture. The digital tuner performance seems excellent and with one exception I have had no trouble with the newest AutumnWave software. If I can get my act together I will try to make a report comparing various receivers' sensitivity to the signals I get here.
I tried using TSreader and it worked selecting the ATSCBDASource.dll input but not with the SasemUSB_8VSB.dll, but I am not sure it is supposed to.
The one problem I have is that I often lose video after changing channels and have to restart the program to get the video back. I have run for several hours without changing channels and have not lost video that way.
John

Ryan,

Thanks for making yourself available to answer our tech questions on this forum. What a great product! I purchased the GT model and have been very pleased. Reception of my local DTV stations is near perfect and installation was a breeze on both a laptop and desktop machine.

I do have one issue that is keeping me from enjoying it fully. When tuned to an HDTV signal and there is fast motion or panning, the video is a bit choppy. It is especially noticeable during football game kickoffs and long passes. This problem is only on the laptop, my desktop display is smooth.

Laptop specs:
Dell E1705
1.66 GHz Dual Core
1 Gig of RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon x1400
1920x1200 UVGA display

Video captured on the laptop, burned on DVD and played on the desktop exhibits no problems.

I updated the drivers for the GT, my video card and Directx.

Any suggestions?

D

I unchecked DXVA and the lost video with channel changing seems to be fixed. It had occured on about one of five channel switches. Edit I spoke too soon it's doing it again. At least one switch that always causes the lost video is to switch from ABC to NBC which is probably a switch from a 720p to a 1080i video source. I can restore video by switching to an Analog channel and it stays on when reselecting a digital channel. John

Also, maybe it's my stupidity but I can't finnd any way to display the EPG info except for the current program that is overlayed on the video. John

Yeah, but as a long time MyHD MDP120 owner, who was pretty much smacked on these forums by CW whenever the subject of "hyperthreading", "multiple CPUs", or "Win64" was brought up, I'd say I'm not a fan of the MyHD product. I know these guys were early pioneers, but I DEFINITELY did not experience the level of support and problem resolution that I've experienced from Autumnwave.

My machine with the MyHD MDP120 still has hyperthreading disabled, and when I upgrade the guts of that machine, the board will probably go (and be replaced with Autumnwave hardware) as it'll be a dual-core or quad-core CPU going in...

Phoenix

What are the important "problems" to resolve all depends on whether your objective is to watch and record HDTV reliably or play with the newest computer gear--the two are mutually exclusive at any given time.

RP,

Thanks for releasing another update to your program and for continually improving it, however, I have one more request that would easily greatly improve the programs capability. The program already has independant color/contrast/brigthness settings for each individual channel. I request that perspective be independant for each digital channel 16:9, 4:3, Pan-Scan, User. I also request that volume also be independant of each channel along with balance as one of the digital channels I use has a balance issue where the left channel is much louder than the right channel.

While analog is pretty much similar in resolution, volumn and aspect ratio, digital channels vary greatly even on sub-channels of the same channel, one channel I use have four of the five resolutions listed.

All of the digital channels I get have the following resolutions. I have also listed the ideal aspect ratio for each of them:
1920x1080, 16:9 (Pan-Scan for 4:3 shows)
1280x720, 16:9 (Pan-Scan for 4:3 shows)
720x480, 4:3
544x480, 4:3
528x480, 4:3