[stylinlp]

Could someone please give me the latest run down on this card? There is a thread for it but it has 10000 posts to decypher and some of the posts are irrelevent old news. Currently Im trying to get the AccessDTV to work but if I give up I will want to try something better.


Pentium 2.8ghz

Gigibyte 875i MB

1gig 3200 ram

Radeon 9600pro Ultimate

Revolution7.1

Hauppauge350

D.vine 4 with 400watt ps

Have a HOLO3D 1 card not being used because have no idea what to do with it.


THeater Tek

WinXP pro

SageTV 1.4


All software current and all drivers current.

 

[simmike]

MyHD is basically an HDTV decoder card that will also record HDTV signal for you to watch later. Keep in mind it only works with over the air (OTA) HDTV , so you probably need to live close to a big city that has multiple network affiliates broadcasting "digital" TV.


It will also receive and record regular TV via either cable or antenna, but in my opinion it doesn't look the greatest for standard definition TV. Other TV cards probably do a better job for regular TV. For HDTV, especially the ability to record and watch later, the MyHD 120 is an absolute gem.


I was deciding which method to go for getting HDTV signal to my projector and I had three options. One was to wait for Comcast to have enough HDTV channels to make it worthwhile. The rollout for this is real slow. Another option was spending $300 on a Samsung OTA decoder. While both these would work for HDTV watching, MyHD went one step further and allowed me to record HDTV and watch it later!! Since I hate commercials, being able to zap forward through recorded HDTV was just the ticket for me.


Keep in mind, MyHD won't record HDTV from either cable or satellite TV. So no ESPN HD or HBO HD.


I'm able to receive about ten OTA digital channels in Seattle. At least six of these broadcast HDTV at least some of the time.

 

[mdryja]

The MyHD card is pretty nice. You reall ydon't need much processing power in your computer, since the MyHD has a h/w decoder, does the video output itself, and can even do the audio stuff itself. Note that the recording option doesn't allow timeshifting (you can't start the program an hour after it starts, such as football -- you have to wait for the program to be completely recordede before you can do playback). And the interface isn't generally as slick as a Tivo unit. But as a stop-gap measure (for me anyway) until the HD DirecTivo unit comes out, it's great!

 

[mdryja]

Two more things I forgot:


1) You need a big hard drive for recording HD content -- about 9 gigabytes an hour.


2) www.digitalconnection.com is a good resource for everything that the MyHD card can do.

 

[stylinlp]

Sounds nice. I just bought the AccessDTV card last week and we can't get a nice picture out of it on a 50" Plasma screen. The Plasma screen will only display the 480p output for some reason and AccessDTV lost their Guide TV service and don't have a replacement yet. So I was looking around for a replacement. Since the MyHD card doesnt do standard TV very well then maybe thats the problem Im having with the AccessDTV. I have y et to watch a show in HDTV> Have no idea what it suppose to look like.


The reason I started this thread was that I didn't want to read thru the original MyHD support thread and wanted someone to rehash it in a few paragraphs on whats good about it and what its limitations are.

 

[mdryja]

We have two 480p plasmas (a 42" and a 37"), and the MyHD outputs a nice picture on them. There is also a 1366x768 resolution selection, and a 720p resolution selection, so you should have no problems.


You will be amazed at how nice HD is. Even on my ED plasma, the difference between DirecTV non_HD and OTA HD is amazing. Switching from the ABC station in non-HD to the ABC station in HD for Monday Night Footbal is like getting a new pair of glasses -- everything is so much crisper and clearer (the blades of grass, for instance, are very visible). The colors are more vibrant, too, although I don't really iknow why this is.