TV Tuner - Dual or Multiple tuners

[MSwhip]

I have a Studio 540 Dell PC that came with a Hauppage1250 TV tuner card with just one tuner on it. That limits me to either A. watch a live TV show or B. watch a show and record it at the same time or C. record a show while the PC is on and im away from it.
I would like to upgrade this to be able to watch one show and be able to simultaneously record a second or even 2 more (3 in total). Could someone pls guide me about this. Are there any good quality dual tuner card in existence? or 3 tuner cards? That would both support Windos 7 64 bit and/or be supported by it?
I dont think i have available slots left to add additional cards so, it is important if there are cards that would use the same slot im using now but with 2 or 3 tuners on it.

I am running Windows 7 Home 64-bit. Also i have NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS 240 1 GB Video Ram and 6 GB of DDR2 RAM dual channel 800Mhz 6400 240 pins non-interlaced.


Any help would be appreciated, about best TV tuner cards Models, brands, links for Me to read about them.

Thank you kindly

 

[Wolfshadw]

What is your video source: OTA digital broadcasts, Cable without a set top box, Cable with a set top box, satellite?

-Wolf sends

 

[MSwhip]

Thanks for taking an interest in helping out.




My PC sits in a basement about 300 feet and one store away from a SMC8014WG-RRR n norm router gateway. I ran RJ-45 cable between router and PC and also video feed directly from the cable feed to the PC installed TV tuner card.
Source is Cable TV company and Cable Internet Service Provider via the said gateway

Upstairs the TV has a digital box (a PVR with its own 160GB storage capacity).


Hope this gives you the picture now.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Ok. If all you're looking to do is record the Clear-QAM channels provided from your cable company, then all you really need is a dual-tuner TV Card. Personally, I like either Hauppauge or AVerMedia.

AVerMedia AVerTV Duet
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250

Another option would be SiliconDust's HDHomeRun external TV Tuner device. Two (or more) of these plugged into your router gateway would provide the same functionality as a single internal TV Tuner Card. There are dual-tuner HDHomerun devices available as well:

Silicon Dust HDHomeRun
Dual-Tuner HDHomeRun

Either of these devices will work fine for your Clear-QAM viewing/recording. The problems begin when you're wanting to record encrypted channels from your cable provider (those channels that require a set top box in order to view). The set top box has to decrypt the channel in order for you to view/record it. Of course, the set top box only outputs the one channel (to your TV Tuner Card). There are some solutions to this problem as well, but availability and cost are concerns.

The Ceton InfiniTV is an internal PCI-Ex1 TV Tuner card that accepts the cablecard you can lease from your cable company. You can find more information about the card from their web site. The basics are you insert the cablecard into the device and you can record up to four channels simultaneously (without the need for a set top box).

The HDHomeRun Prime is a external device (like the HDHomeRun boxes I linked above). It also accepts a cablecard from your cable company and can record up to three channels simultaneously. You can read more about it from SiliconDust's web site.

Hope this helps get you on your way.

-Wolf sends