I've seen a lot of threads where people ask which is the best analog TV card to get, but none about DVB-T tuners, so I thought I'd start something for people to put down their thoughts.  

Hauppauge Nova-T (PCI version)

Good driver support from Hauppuage - regularly updated with bug fixes. 
Hauppauge in the UK have a forum with extremely knowledgeable people on it (especially the external moderator Chris Day).
Latest releases of drivers support dual tuners.
Uses a Thompson tuner - these are supposed to be able to deal with weaker signals better than some of the other manufacturer's tuners.
There is a version specifically badged for MCE.
Card has a UHF passthru connector on to allow your VCR/TV to be plugged in too via UHF
Runs quite hot (in comparison at least to the BlackGold card)
Has an LED on the card to remind you that the power is still on so you don't unplug it!
Hauppauge have a digital radio option in beta for the Nova-T - it is an HTML app that sits in "More Programs" and talks directly to the card to play radio (outside of the normal Radio app within Media Center).

GDI BlackGold DVB-T (PCI)

Drivers are WHQL'd at v5.17 - haven't been updated in a while, but seem stable, but may have a bug that causes video jumping occasionally (at least I see it on all Black Gold cards I've used).
Seems to be less able to deal with weak signals than the Nova-T
Has had dual tuner support much longer than the Nova-T cards, and works well.
Runs cooler than the Nova-T card
Picture seems slightly sharper than the Nova-T (not quite sure what causes this as they don't encode MPEG, the broadcaster does that).
Apparently GDI are working on a dual tuner, single card version of the product which would be great.
GDI also supposed to be working on a digital radio option for Media Center but no details available.
Feedback from people about support from GDI is mixed - some say they have had great response from phoning or emailing GDI, others say they have never had any replies.

Avermedia AverTV DVB-T USB 2.0 (USB)

Very small external box (about the size of a cigarette packet)
Powered by USB so no external PSU required - but needs the full 500ma from the USB port for power.  Comes with a second USB connector in case your PC doesn't provide enough power on one USB port.
Seems to have a very sensitive tuner - picked up 115 channels on scanning
Downside of that is trying to cut out those that aren't the channels you want - driver bug?
Not tested this myself, but I've seen posts that say you can't use two together - the drivers only support single device use

Cheers,
Andy

Hauppauge Nova-T DVB USB2

Small good-looking silver box, connects to USB2 ports only (does not support USB1 at all)
BDA Drivers for MCE from the Hauppauge website
Supports dual tuners with a second Nova-T USB2 or PCI
No external PSU required, takes power from PC
Supports signals weaker than even the PCI version can pick up
Power light on front of unit
Note: Does not have RF passthrough

Hi,

I have got both the avermedia and hauppauge USB tuners so shall add my experiences.

Avermedia a800 DVB-T USB2

I started out with one of these tuners and I think they are excellent, very small size, good reception and worked first time. There is one major drawback and that is that you cannot use a pair of them, it causes many tuning problems and avermedia support have confirmed that the drivers do not support 2 tuners, and did not say if this would change.

Hauppauge USB2 DVB-T

I recently purchased one of these to replace my second avermedia and the reception and picture quality appears to be equal to the avermedia. Cosmetically the box is not as small or stylish but is quite acceptable. I have been running the 1.3 drivers that came with the tuner and have had a few unexplainable device driver lockups but I have yet to try the 2.0 drivers.

Just to add that with both tuners I only installed the drivers and use media center for all the viewing.

Kevin

While your on this test, I figured I would point out that hauppauge is currently testing a digital radio addon for their dvb cards. currently only the usb one is supported but look in the mce drivers section and you should find the beta release. I know digital radio and pid changing is an important topic for mce users not in the us.

I've downloaded the radio app, but not used it as I only have the PCI version and you have to stop the eh* processes to run it (which kind of defeats the object for me!).

They have chosen an interesting way to make the app - it is an HTML app, with an ActiveX control that addresses the card/device directly rather than through the MCE route.  This is because MCE can't cope with DVB-T signals that don't have video (specifically the stream buffer engine can't cope) - hopefully in the next release Microsoft will rectify that issue, and the need for separate radio apps will go away.

Cheers,
Andy

Does anyone have a good understanding of the way that the DVB-T cards work on an internal level (CX are you out there?), who can explain how this works:

I have tried the GDI Black Gold cards in my MCE machine - we are in a marginal reception area, and I get a lot of dropouts as a result (but still watchable and highly preferable to analog or a VCR).    If the signal fails, this card can also bring down the MCE machine in a way that the Hauppuage card doesn't.

The Hauppauge card apparently uses a Thompson tuner which is much more sensitive (and it sounds like their USB2 device is even better), and causes less dropouts, but to my eyes the picture seems worse in comparison to the GDI card.   Now given that the broadcaster is the one that encodes in MPEG not the receiver, how can this be?   What is it about the GDI hardware or drivers that gives a better picture than the Hauppauge card?

Also, the Hauppauge card has an additional CX chip on it (it has two where the GDI has only the -19 chip) - is this correct, or is the chip hidden under the can on the other card?

Cheers,
Andy

AndyC;
"If the signal fails, this card can also bring down the MCE machine in a way that the Hauppuage card doesn't."
Perhaps the driver for the Hauppauge card is doing some filtering of bad/corrupt packets whereas the GDI driver is passing it onto software? Just speculation but some of the older cards did this.

"The Hauppauge card apparently uses a Thompson tuner which is much more sensitive (and it sounds like their USB2 device is even better)"
Out of the various cards I've used the Nova-t USB2 seems the most sensitive (as with most USB 2.0 models). I think that the reference Conexant design uses similar components to the 90002.

"Now given that the broadcaster is the one that encodes in MPEG not the receiver, how can this be? What is it about the GDI hardware or drivers that gives a better picture than the Hauppauge card?"
I don't know why this is.

"Also, the Hauppauge card has an additional CX chip on it (it has two where the GDI has only the -19 chip) - is this correct, or is the chip hidden under the can on the other card?"
The CX22702 is the demod. Some tuner cans have it's equivalent functionality built in.

I need a 2nd tuner but have given up waiting for black-golds promised dual tuner PCI card.

Does anyone have experience of adding a Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T USB2 to a media centre PC with a Black-Gold PCI card?  Can one mix tuners from two sources like this?

Having recently bought a Nova-T and put together my first Media Center PC, I'll add some comments...

Hauppauge Nova-T (PCI version, 90002 variant)

UHF passthru is useless.  The signal out is heavily attenuated when the PC is off.  But that's OK and to be expected since that's how set top box and VCRs behave.  What is bad though is that the signal attenuation gets much worse when the PC is powered up or on standby.  I gave up and use an aerial distribution/feeder box to feed the card and my existing analogue TV and VCR (which I am still using whilst I'm still setting up the Media Center PC).

The Hauppauge WinTV application, in the 1.3 driver release, doesn't work on a PC with Media Center installed (and that is after stopping the ehrecvr service - something that took me a while to discover).  WinTV appears to be working but when you scan for channels it doesn't show any signals.  The 2.0 driver fixes this, but the 2.0 driver still isn't available on the UK site.  A general tip for Hauppauge owners seems to be to check the German or other sites which seem to get driver updates somewhat quicker.

The issue with the WinTV application is no big deal though if you only ever want to run Media Center.

Here are some plus points:

It comes with a remote control that can be reasonably well configured to control Media Center.  Only thing I haven't managed to make work is using the remote to wake the PC from standby (I was hoping that the LED on the card might mean that it was powered during standby and that it might be possible to make this work).

It's one of the most common DVB-T cards so software support from other PVR apps is good.  The latest drivers are BDA compliant which is also becoming increasingly good for compatibility with other apps.

It can be cheap - if you get one of the £50 PC World deals that they have done at least twice this year.  (PC World have also sold the Nova-T USB2 at £60 which is also a good deal.)

Most of the "action" on the Hauppauge UK site goes on in the forum rather than the static pages - the 2.0 drivers are very definately there, as are a whole load of hints & tips on installing etc.   Hauppauge UK are very lucky to have an external moderator called Chris Day who moderates the forum and provides very good help.

Cheers,
Andy

Black Gold - plugged them in, installed the drivers, they work. Completely end-user invisble - just as they should be!

Hauppauge HVR-1100
Same drivers as Nova-t PCI (unified)
Philips hybrid tuner
DVB-T
Analogue Tuner with MCE-compatible SoftPVR
FM Stereo Radio
Composite/S-Video Input with Live Preview (good for games consoles)
Only seen in Germany so far, but priced at around 90 EUR
Slightly longer than the Nova-t PCI
MCE version available with Phono Audio and no IR

Hauppauge HVR-1300
As above but expected to have hardware MPEG2 encoder
Not yet released yet and not much information known about it

"but I've seen posts that say you can't use two together - the drivers only support single device use"

Not any more. I've managed to get both the USB and the PCI version working in the same unit with a bit of fiddling.

I'm beta testing the MHEG5 capability of the usb box at the moment and it looks more than promising, just a shame that my signal is really poor at the moment for things like that.

Twinhan Alpha,
Just out, very very small, just a bit bigger than the size of a lighter and supports MCE and has BDA drivers as well. Not really tested it yet but I've heard whispers that it can get very hot.

Hi Shiftlocked,

I am very interrested to hear about how you got the two avermedia cards to work together. I have two a800 USB 2.0 tuners and could not get them to work together under MCE.

This is particuarly interresting now as I have been running an avermedia and a hauppauge tuner but following an increeasing number of device driver reboots I updated to version 2 drivers. Whilst this has sorted the crashes the tuner just reports that it has no signal if the avermedia is plugged in at the same time so I am back to a single tuner.

Is the Twinhan USB and any ideas if it supports multiple tuners?

Many Thanks

 Kevin

We have tested the AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 in conjunction with a Hauppauge Nova-T PCI without any problems, both available here:

http://www.theglowlounge.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/128_121

(I would recommend using a powered splitter for the aerial though)

On another note, could someone please post a link for the Hauppauge Nova-T USB2.0 MCE drivers?