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Compro's dual DVB-T tuner

by Steve Kerrison on 25 October 2006, 11:43

Tags: Compro

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Compro is jumping aboard the MCE dual tuner train with its new VideoMate T750.

The T750 squares up against the likes of Hauppauge's Nova-T 500 with a similar feature set, although it does appear to have a few advantages.

The T750 is a dual analogue and DVB-T tuner. This gives it the ability to tune digital television as well as capture from analogue sources like old VHS players. The card comes with cabling to allow it to power up a system from off ready for scheduled recordings, a feature that is currently, we believe, unique to Compro's tuners.

Unlike the Hauppauge Nova-T 500, the Compro T750 appears to be a native PCI solution, rather than a USB device interfacing with an onboard USB host.

The drivers are BDA, meaning DVB-T tuning is supported in Windows MCE. However, from our experience that doesn't necessarily mean it'll work well with MCE... sometimes tuners do, sometimes tuners don't, especially when more than one tuner is installed. Seems to be a dicey business, creating a MCPC.

For non-MCE scenarios, Compro bundle their DTV3 software, along with Ulead PhotoExplorer, ComproDVD and a handful of other goodies. There's an IR remote too.

On paper, the T750 looks to be a solid card and a strong contender for 'the tuner card to use in your new living room PC' award. Providing it's priced well, it should sell well.

Compro VideoMate T750

HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Posted by deleted - Wed 25 Oct 2006 12:56
Awesome.

I have the Videomate T300 in my PC, which has a dual analog-digital tuner. The hardware is fantastic and has never let me down, and finally the software is good enough to match. In the early days the software was rubbish, but it was frequently updated. It shows they care!

My current card works very well with MCE, providing you are watching it. If you schedule MCE to record something, the card can take ~1 second to tune to your desired channel, in which time MCE decides that there is no signal and gives up on your recording. I don't know if this is a common problem with MCE, but I thought I'd mention it. Also the power up schedule feature is only for the Compro software, not for MCE (although i suppose you could specify for it to turn on and not record, so that MCE can do the recording).

I own 3 different Compro cards and they are all good, reliable pieces of kit. I'd have this card on my shopping list if it was PCI-E.
Posted by deleted - Wed 25 Oct 2006 13:07
I have four tuner cards in my possession. I have a Compro U3, Compro T200, Hauppauge Nova-T 500 and a Terratec Cynergy XS Hybrid. Compro's tuners don't play ball with my other tuners, so I'm using the latter two.
Posted by deleted - Wed 25 Oct 2006 13:54
Got a T200 which I've just taken out of my case - to allow for better cooling . The software isn't great but they do regular driver updates. I've got a Terratec 2400i PCIe dual tuner which works great but currently lacks linux and hence MythTV support.
Posted by deleted - Wed 25 Oct 2006 18:48
The Compro T200 I have is shocking, the software is terrible, regularly crashes, when you update to the latest drivers (which you have to do to pick up any channels) the remote stops working. Every couple of days I have to rescan which can take up to an hour. The tuner works okay under Vista Media Center but unless they've really improved the software avoid like the plauge. Plus the customer support is non-existent, I've contact them several times about my problems and haven't had a single reply.
Posted by deleted - Wed 25 Oct 2006 21:47
Never really used the software other than watching a bit of live TV / Radio. The bugs are the software and I've never used the remote other than to test it functioned.

There's a strong Compro community at www.tv-cards.com

http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?id=9052 448 posts on the T200/T300.

The only difference between the T200 and T300 is the analogue capture but you can capture from S-Video and Composite with the T200.

There used to be a distro list which would mail you whenever a new driver or app appeared - even if it wasn't visible on the website. Don't know if it still works though.

I use webscheduler for recording - cannot recommend it highly enough, particularly when coupled with XMLTV GUI for getting the EPG from Radio Times.

ProgDVB is also a good app although one part of the setup is a little counter-intuitive for DVB-T cards (it was initially written for DVB-S).

Never had any problems with it needed rescanning every few days.

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