PC Alchemy has graciously provided Missing Remote with samples of Happauge’s new PCI based HVR-1600 (which is getting great feedback from users and they even use it at PC Alchemy), and AVerMedia’s new M780, which is PCI Express!
Some inital notes…
[b]HVR-1600[/b]
It is not a PVR-150 with an ATSC tuner grafted on, thank the lords of Kobol! The PVR-150/500 design is a piece of junk thanks to Happauge never getting the drivers right.
The analog uses the newer Conexant CX23418 integrated brodcast decoder (ADC) and MPEG2 encoder in one chip. And the CX24227 ATSC demodulator for OTA digital TV, which I can’t find squat about on Conexant’s site.
[b]AVerMedia M780[/b]
Perhaps more interesting, thanks to the design being PCI Express x1 based, is the AVerMedia M780. If you have seen the Micronas MicViper reference design, this what the Vbox 164e is based on. AVerMedia’s design is loosely based on this, however, quite importantly, it is hardware encoding for the analog portion and the design is a proper ‘combo’ (ATSC and NTSC simultaneously) and not a ‘hybrid’ (either/or ATSC/NTSC) like the Vbox design. It has two separate silicon-based tuner modules (the vendor of which I couldn’t assertain).
The analog duties are handled by the NEC µPD61153, which was also used on AVerMedia’s excellent Purity 3D 250 that I reviewed over at HTPCnews last summer. So this bodes well for the NTSC portion of the M780.
The ATSC portion is the widely used “5th Generation” LG DT3303 ATSC/QAM demodulator which is in the same family of demodulators the DVICO Fusion 5 series uses.
.
