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View Full Version : Nvidia Releases Dual-Tuner DVR, Where's The HD?


Brendan Goetz
04-09-2006, 12:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://store.nvidia.com/product.aspx?sku=2768081&section_id=57&culture=en-US' target='_blank'>http://store.nvidia.com/product.aspx?sku=2768081&section_id=57&culture=en-US</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With its unique two-tuner technology, the NVIDIA DualTV tuner transforms an MCE-equipped PC into a bona fide home entertainment system. With a touch of a mouse button, users can schedule recordings of their favorite TV shows and watch them when they want, record two TV shows simultaneously, or watch one channel while recording another, as well as watch pause, and rewind live or recorded TV shows. With the emergence of portable media players and ubiquitous broadband availability, NVIDIA DualTV users can watch their programs from almost anywhere—in the home, on the go, or over the Internet. Programs recorded with the NVIDIA DualTV tuner can be transferred to personal media players and portable game players that play back video, and many other portable media players. Live or recorded shows can be streamed throughout the home to game consoles or Media Center Extenders; and with Orb Networks software (<a href="www.orb.com">www.orb.com</a>), NVIDIA DualTV tuner users can watch live or recorded TV shows from anywhere in the world over the Internet for personal use. "</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/dualtv_box.jpg" /> <br /><br />Taking press releases with a grain of salt, this still looks like a pretty cool product. Having two tuners is great, and really helps to diffuse any domestic arguments over what show to watch/record, and I like the whole “watch it on your PMP aspect, but I just don’t understand why people are making video recorders that are not HD compatible. I mean, come on! You are obviously marketing towards video guys (ordinary folks are not buying these kinds of products, they are using their cable box or a Tivo) so don’t you think these people are looking for High Def? Standard Def TV looks like ass on a computer monitor.

EscapePod
04-09-2006, 01:43 AM
While I agree that we could use some more good HDTV tuner cards (I'll never use TiVO), there are some interesting video cards out there. The TV room PC I plan to build will most likely have the nVidia GeForce 7600GT CO SUPERCLOCKED 256MB 2DVI/HDTV 780MHz PCI-Express.

It claims to have HDTV, however, the TV decoder may only be SD. I'll have to do more research.

Jason Dunn
04-09-2006, 08:10 PM
Unless you're talking about over-the-air HD, there's a very good reason why this product doesn't have HD: it's not possible yet. In order to have HD support in Media Center Edition, you need Cable Card support, which is only just now being certified with different hardware. And my understanding is that the Cable Card support will be given to entire systems first, not TV tuners. There's a lot of security/DRM stuff that goes into getting HD into a PC.

Jason Dunn
04-09-2006, 08:16 PM
The TV room PC I plan to build will most likely have the nVidia GeForce 7600GT CO SUPERCLOCKED 256MB 2DVI/HDTV 780MHz PCI-Express. It claims to have HDTV, however, the TV decoder may only be SD. I'll have to do more research.

Nah, that's just "HDTV Output" not an HDTV tuner/capture or anything remotely that useful.

Brendan Goetz
04-10-2006, 12:40 AM
i was thinking more along the lines of HD encoding straight from the cable box's output, kinda like i used to do with my Hauppauge mpeg card. DRM is just another way for them to try and tell me what i can do with a signal that i already paid for. i don't have a lot of patience for that.

Jason Dunn
04-10-2006, 06:37 AM
i was thinking more along the lines of HD encoding straight from the cable box's output, kinda like i used to do with my Hauppauge mpeg card.

Right, but the cable providers (and content providers) won't allow that to happen. I'd love that too, but it's not NVIDIA's fault for not providing a product that allows it - remember that HD cable signal is encrypted, so the good old DCMA probably comes into effect here if a PC product were to crack that encryption and allow you to record it to your hard drive. :(

Jeremy Charette
04-10-2006, 07:51 PM
What about OTA signals? For that alone dual HD tuners would make sense.

Jason Dunn
04-10-2006, 08:07 PM
What about OTA signals? For that alone dual HD tuners would make sense.

See my first post: "Unless you're talking about over-the-air HD"...

OTA is fine if you're in the US of A, but not for me in Canada or most other places in the world.

Jeremy Charette
04-10-2006, 08:10 PM
Just move to the states already! :wink:

klinux
04-10-2006, 11:17 PM
I will sponsor Jason for a dual citizenship!

Jason Dunn
04-11-2006, 02:33 AM
I will sponsor Jason for a dual citizenship!

Hah! Thanks for the vote of confidence. ;-)