Hdtv Analog+digital Tuner Supoort

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RavenShaolin
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Posts: 1
https://ask.fm/kuchniewarszawa
Joined: 16 Aug 2007, 23:06

Post by RavenShaolin »

HDTV Analog+Digital tuner suport would be awesome
TombstoneShadow
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Posts: 1
Joined: 20 Apr 2008, 00:00

Post by TombstoneShadow »

HDTV / Digital
Australian tv is heading this way now
2010 is supposed to be the switch off date for analogue tv
hdtv digital would be great if added to chris tv program
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Xenomorph
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Posts: 26
Joined: 19 Nov 2006, 23:10

Post by Xenomorph »

Many / most digital tuners support something called "BDA". Supposedly that is supposed to make them easier to work with and create digital TV viewers.

Until ChrisTV gets support for digital/BDA, there are few existing digital TV programs I've used recently.


WatchHDTV (1.960 for XP, 2.0 Beta for Vista, freeware).

Works best under XP. The 1.960 version has a lot of issues under Vista, and while the 2.0 version works better under Vista, is missing a lot of features compared to 1.960, and still has some tuning issues.

Easy HDTV (1.3.0 is current, for XP or Vista, 30 day trial, $20 I think).

It works the same under XP and Vista. The current 1.3.0 version supports some nice new features that WatchHDTV 1.9x has (such as "overscan" and "always on top"), however it has a nasty display bug with Vista SP1.
I use the older 1.2.1 version under Vista SP1 along with a program called "AlwaysOnTop" to force it to stay on top. If you use XP or non SP1 Vista, I'd go for 1.3.0. I have no idea if/when the SP1 video display bug will be fixed. Chris fixed ChrisTV's issues with Vista SP1, so I have hope for Easy HDTV still.

One nice thing with the Digital TV tuners - they output in MPEG2, which means if you have a proper decoder installed and a recent video card (GeForce 6 or newer or something like a Radeon 9800 or newer), your video card will handle all the video decoding. That means you get perfect de-interlacing with almost ZERO CPU usage.

Both WatchHDTV and Easy HDTV can be set up to use your video card's hardware MPEG2 decoders.
I don't know if something like that could be done with ChrisTV, as most analog TV tuners don't output MPEG2 or even MPEG1.
First Light
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Posts: 21
Joined: 17 Sep 2006, 22:46

Post by First Light »

Greetings,

I'd like to add my voice to the request for digital TV tuner (ATSC) support for the U.S. I've made the transition to over-the-air digital TV and, since my ChrisTV Pro software is now unusable, I uninstalled it today.

I'm using a DViCO FushionHDTV7 Dual Express tuner card. It is a dual tuner card with one hybrid ATSC digital / NTSC analog tuner and one ATSC digital-only tuner. I only use the ATSC tuners. The card allows you to view one channel while simultaneously recording another.

I'm also using an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card with mpeg2 decoding/encoding capability as Xenomorph described.

The "FushionHDTV" software that came with my tuner card leaves a lot to be desired. It frequently crashes and is very temperamental with regard to antivirus/antispyware software. This is a major problem because I like to watch TV while I check email and surf the net. Having a live view/PVR program that works well with my Norton Internet Security software is important and ChrisTV has done a good job in the past.

I'd definitely upgrade if a stable version of ChrisTV were available to handle ATSC tuners and both H.264 video compression and AC3 5.1 audio coding for recordings. If H.264 and AC3 are too much to ask and an ATSC-compatible version of ChrisTV would only record the ATSC stream, then you'll need to add a good "player" function to ChrisTV to make it easy to replay recorded streams.

Another feature that would be helpful for ATSC compatibility would be full support for the digital information supplied in the data stream. This information identifies not only the channel, but also the current programming. Plus, it provides an electronic program guide for the channel.

Finally, about half the stations in my viewing area broadcast a 16:9 HD digital TV signal and the other half broacast a 4:3 SD digital signal. Therefore we need to be able to set an independent aspect ratio setting for each channel so that ChrisTV would know to adjust its aspect ratio automatically when changing channels. Otherwise it is a pain to have to go into the settings and reconfigure the program manually each time we change channels and the aspect ratio changes.

Thanks Chris for your kind consideration.

Best regards, First Light
edlight
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Joined: 03 May 2008, 05:31

Post by edlight »

I must add my desperate request for a digital TV Chris.

The presently available alternatives don't, as far as I can see, let you adjust the picture for each channel, or even at all. The channels of DTV in my area are some dark, some light.

Please, Chris -- I think that most of the DTV cards adhere to a common standard (DVB or something?); maybe it wouldn't be too challenging to do.
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Xenomorph
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Joined: 19 Nov 2006, 23:10

Post by Xenomorph »

I'd like to mention Easy HDTV again.

I know I mentioned it a few months back. It's at version 1.5.0 now, and the Vista SP1 issue has long been fixed.

It also works great under Windows 7 (I tested it under build 7000, 7048, and 7057).

So if ChrisTV never supports Digital TV / BDA Tuners, give Easy HDTV a look.
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