Customer Reviews

Avertv Combo PCIE(M780)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This product replaces a Hauppaugge PVR-150 in my HTPC. The quality on analog signals is significantly better, and adds the ability to receive digital signals. You can use both tuners at the same time via picture-in-picture, or watch one tuner while recording on the other.

The analog tuner (NTSC) has input for coax or S-Video. If you use s-video, the audio is received by an adapter that plugs into a mini-jack just below it.

The digital tuner is for receiving ATSC (OTA) or QAM (cable) signals. It only has a coax input. If you go for OTA ATSC of course you are subject to reception issues just like any other antenna. Since it's digital, it really either works or it doesn't. If your signal is strong enough you get a clear, beautiful picture. If it's not strong enough, you get squat, or even worse a freezing stuttering picture. I live in the suburbs and the antenna is in the basement and I get most channels at 70-80% signal, but this is a entirely dependent on your antenna and not this tuner.

This card also supports unencrypted clear QAM. Cable companies are supposed to (and I think most if not all do) send local digital channels on their basic service. So you should be able to watch your local channels, but not premium channels like HBO since those would be encrypted. Vista Media Center (and I think MCE2005 as well) do NOT support QAM directly. The included AverMedia software receives these with no problem, and Avermedia has a beta plugin that enables it in Vista Media Center (google "clear qam in vista media center" and its one of the first few that come up). However, there are other options such as MediaPortal (for windows, this is what I use) or MythTV (for linux, I don't use this but have heard awesome things about it) which are both open source (i.e. free) alternatives and support clear QAM.

If you are set on using Windows Media Center another alternative is the HD HomeRun, an external unit that also supports QAM and does show up in Media Center.

Other notes about this card, it is PCI-e and not PCI. All recent motherboards have more and more PCI-e slots (less and less PCI), but there isn't much to fill them with... Well, here is one. The tuners on this card are physically *tiny*, especially compared to the hauppaugge pvr-150 which has a huge NTSC tuner. All encoding is done by the card, so it puts very little strain on your CPU (watching HD content is another story).

I have been using this card on my vista Media Center for about a month or so now. Although the quality of the output does not match the comcast box (for 'digitised' analog channels), it is more than enough. Where I live, I don't pick up a lot of OTA HD stations, but the quality was very good for the ones that I was able to pickup with an indoor bunny ears antenna.

Aver has recently released a beta driver for QAM which will enable QAM on vista. In some markes, this is a big deal as you can watch/record your local HD stations (and anything that is not encrypted by your cable company) on Vista MCE. But like any other beta, it requires some jumping through hoops.

Please note that you can either do only one of the following:
NTSC & QAM or,
NTSC & OTA HD.

Also, this is a PCI-express-1 card. Even if your mobo came with 2 PCI-Ex16 slots and 2 PCE-ex1 slots, you could have a problem if you are running SLI (2 video cards). enabling SLI usually disables the smaller PCI express slots. Read up before you pull the trigger.

For those looking for a tuner out of the box, the HDhomerun (network based - has QAM support for vista MCE) and the recently released Visiontek ATI 650 combo tuner (No QAM on vista yet) are good choices.

Before purchasing this card, I read a lot of reviews on PC TV tuner for my new system. Out of all the products review and user experience I read, I decided to give this card a shot. [...]

So the card arrived and I plug this in to my new Vista MCE 32bit system. Goto their website and download the driver. Installation is easy, no error msg pop up, driver is logo-ed. I went to Vista MCE setup (nice & easy 1,2,3) and found both analog and digital connection (make sure you are connected the Coax Cable to the card). I have a roof top antenna, so the digital reception I have is SUPER. What amaze me is the analog video quality (read their spec and see 3D comb filter). So I tune to ESPN and HBO, very nice in fast motion as well.

When I download the driver, I see they have a application available for QAM (un-encrypted Digital Cable). So I go to their website again and downlaod the application (FREE). Plug in the cable feed to the ATSC RF connector on M780. Take a little bit time to understand how to configure the card with QAM. Then I "hit" scan (a good 30 minutes later), found 40+ channels. I checked one by one and see half of them are audio only channels "Music" and the rest are local TV channels. To be honest, I would still prefer my Roof Top Antenna over the cable on local TV channel in HD.

Thoughts... I gave a 5 stars because it is a great product and a great price. It performs as what it said on their web. Good video quality on both analog and digital (Good antenna does help a lot on digital side). It does run hot, but it is acceptable (it won't burn your finger like graphic card does). May build another system with two of this cards so I can have 4 tuners in one system...

but the analog picture is superb. (I haven't yet gotten the required amplifier for my atsc antenna) There is simply no comparison between this card and either my WinTV 150 or WinTV 1600. The picure is actually crisper than the the analog tuner in my Olevia 27 inch widescreen flat panel. For the price, this delivers a picture with a significant WOW! factor.

As for the heat, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for now. It won't sear your flesh, but it's disturbingly uncomfortable to handle after a few hour's use. I'm thinking that after 3 hour's use, it's about as hot as it's going to get. And so far, so good. And did I mention the picture quality? WOW!
For that, 12 stars. For the heat, 3. I'll provisionally rate this at 4 stars. If the heat becomes a real problem, I'll delete this review and write a new one that suitably trashes this product. But for now? - I love it.

This product really delivers. Especially when you consider the price. Great picture, easy install and it was instantly recognized by SageTV and Beyond TV. There may be only one draw back; It is a white box unit and I do not believe it would be a good product for someone with little computer upgrade experience. It does not come with drivers, manuals, or literature of any kind. But, there was never a claim that it would. I highly recommend this product to anyone who wants great performance at little cost but has the skills to deal with the install and configuration.

It works and has decent quality video but it runs hot. It's not hot to the point where you cannot touch it, but I don't suggest you leave your hand there for any length of time. The back of the card is about as hot as my GeForce 8800 while it's not under load. Good cooling within the case is a MUST have. At least the card works properly with Windows Vista 64-bit edition.

The tuner works wonderfully and pulls in most of the digital TV stations on the cable in the Boston area and has exceptional picture. The dual tuner is nice for picture in picture. The only problem I found is the rather tedious way you have to enter the station ID's. Other than that, it is a great product.

After reading lots of reviews and comparisons I settled on this product despite the very negative reviews of its Beta AVer Media Center software. If I were to do it over I would have ordered a product which has a solid application included. I understand that it now works completely (including QAM digital tuning)with current drivers in MCE 2005 and Vista Media center...but I don't have either one and am now stuck with what AVermedia has provided. All it's good for is real-time viewing and manual recording. Forget about reliable scheduled recording. Also, the mpeg-2 digital tuner recordings are only viewable with the Avermedia Center. I have no sound when attempting to use any other media player. It has something to do with the AC3 encoding. I've contacted tech support for these two standout problems and while I received replies I received no fixes, either.

It is a very good tuner overall. The OTA signal reception is some of the best I have seen. VBox DTA-150 and DVICo Fusion 5 tuners are a little stronger, but not much. It is much better at OTA ATSC tuning than the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI. The analog picture quality is good. I have seen better pictue quality on SD cable from tuners like the VistaView DA-1N1-E and the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI. It really is good enough picture quality. I don't want to slam it much there. The differences between it and the best I have seen are very small. I would say 90% of the picture quality or better as compared to ATI 650 or the Vistaview. The ability to do unencrypted QAM in Media Center is a big plus for some, but I just use OTA ATSC. If you want to read more about that just search for this tuner and QAM on thegreenbutton forum site. There is a hidden beta/betatest on the Avermedia ftp site that has everything you need if you are very Media Center savvy.

It's the second avermedia tuner card and I like this one particularly! Its picture quality is comparable great and no problems with RF noise indeed. It also gets great reception with an outdoor antenna. I have a spare PCI-e x1 slot so this one is a good buy.actually I have ordered another one for my pal's Xmas gift...