What tuner for Windows 10 at 1080p?

wingman99 said:

What is a good TV tuner card?

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Some updated info in post #14 as of 10/2/2016


My previous card, this http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1600.html was great. But, and it's a big 'ol corn fed but, that was using WMC in W7. My current mobo doesn't support the PCIe configuration on that card so it went to my daughter with the rest of the build. My current card http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_quadhd.html has all kinds of features but the software is clunky and there is no way to add channels manually to the channel selector. The software http://www.hauppauge.com/site/webstore2/webstore_cd-wintvv8.html doesn't come with it on disc, you have to download it. Also, the "guide" is a third party website, which is just annoying. To record a show is three clicks and then manually enter nine lines of info-while searching a typical website TV schedule. The reward for all this is a not very good picture. My antenna and display are the same as the last card and my graphics card is way better than the old R7.

Here's the recording interface. It opens with the info for whatever channel the TV is on, and all the following info must be entered manually to record something different. For each of the four tuners.

I was wondering what TV tuner would work great with windows 10 at 1080p?

What does 'good' mean?
People buy them to
A. Capture quality picture.
And / or
B. Use as a DVR

If there is no simple and quick way to use DVR, then everything else is pretty much irrelevant if you need it to DVR TV and most people do.

And there is no easy way to use DVR unless you use Windows 7 or you bought the currently unbuyable Windows Media Center for Windows 8 (Only works on Windows 8)

Hacked WMC for Win10 does not exist in working DVR state for Windows 10 for 99% of people, because it only works for very few zip codes.

Alaric said:

...all the following info must be entered manually... For each of the four tuners.

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Wow. That's insane.
Who would do that once they know what Microsoft Windows Media Center can do... but WMC is not available for Windows 10

And somehow Alaric's post goes in front of the original... WTH?????????

SOrry wingman......borked it trying to make things better....

c627627 said:

Wow. That's insane.
Who would do that once they know what Microsoft Windows Media Center can do...

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Windows 10 is the short answer. Pretty much a captive audience once you have the tuner. Here's the channel guide/selector. It pops open in the middle of the picture window. XP, anyone? LOL

EarthDog said:

And somehow Alaric's post goes in front of the original... WTH?????????

SOrry wingman......borked it trying to make things better....

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No good deed goes unpunished. LOL

I should have some answers Thursday or Friday when my W7 DVD shows up. After a trip to c627627's W7 update thread. Although I may do a quick check on picture quality with the new card in Media Center to see if my issues are hardware based. The Win TV app crashed (hung) tonight, so I'm really hoping it's all software related.

Well I mean I have everything working in Windows Media Center on Windows 8.
This entire issue is about Windows Media Center, which works perfectly under Windows 7.
As it does on Windows 8, if you bought the activation key for $10 from Microsoft before they stopped selling it.

I'm sure you won't have any problems, most, or all cards are good enough. It's not about the cards. It's about the software or lack thereof...

That's my hope. If the (lack of) picture quality is the hardware I'm going to be an unhappy little camper. And seeking a refund. I may take advantage of the ability to try the new card in the old rig before I declare it defective (if it comes to that). I still have access to it for experimentation. I'm installing an OCZ SSD boot drive in it Monday so that would be a good time.

My W7 has arrived. Now for the fun of installing and updating over a 2.5 Mbps internet connection.

Update: I finally got my card working. I had to install the Hauppauge software for the drivers. It's now recognized by Media Center and everything is working the way it's supposed to. I have to say I don't recommend the Hauppauge WinTV QuadHD tuner. The picture quality is sub par at best. My old card, a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600, on the same display, was far superior in picture quality to the current card. I guess it could be the graphics card, but I doubt the RX 480 comes up short against the R7 260x. Overall the new tuner is a disappointment and customer service sucks. Answers (when they come at all) take a week or more from their "support". I should have seen that coming when the card itself was a month late getting here. Oh, and the crappy IR sensor/remote that came with the new card doesn't work on their software or Media Center. It's just extra junk in the box.

I won't be doing business with Hauppauge again unless I see something that proves my experience will be different, and I won't be easy to convince.

Thanks for your review, what other options are there for a TV tuner card?

Unfortunately, I've only had the two, both from Hauppauge. The Quad tuner is a newer product, and that could be the source of my issues from late delivery to not meeting the performance level of the older card. Their older design cards (dual tuner) and single tuner cards may still be great. I think c627627 has one of their USB tuners and has no issues with it. I did notice a lack of driver support for older cards on their website recently. When I tried reinstalling the drivers on my old rig they weren't available from Hauppauge's site and the driver package I had wouldn't see the card. I'm going to try installing the software suite ($10 from Hauppauge!) on that rig and see if that works, but I can't get there until next week.

Oh, and the crappy IR sensor/remote that came with the new card doesn't work on their software or Media Center. It's just extra junk in the box.

I made an interesting discovery. I installed the WinTV v8 software suite from Hauppauge and the drivers worked in Windows 7. Media Center works as intended, all is well with all four tuners on the card. And the picture quality is now the same between the Happauge app and Media Center, after some display adjustments. Even more interesting, I have sharing enabled with another computer on my network that uses Windows 8.1 without Media Center. That computer can watch recorded TV (Media Center) from my rig using Media Player! So a dedicated HTPC rig on your network can use Media Center (Windows 7 or 8/8.1) for the superior interface and convenience, while using W8 (and likely W10) on other rigs on the network, and still stream the recorded programming on the other computers on the network. Nice!