Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater upconverting or upscaling DVD players

I bought one of these for my home theater a while ago, and am VERY pleased with it:

DVDO iscan

With this, I upconvert everything to 1080i (it'll do 720P and other formats, too). I upconvert everything and use the component outputs to connect to my TV (DVI on my TV is problematic).

It's nice having this, because it automatically switches audio and video for me. Even my playstation2 is hooked up thru this and gets upconverted to 1080i and optical audio input. My DVD player also upconverts, but I've found that it looks better when I output 480P from my DVD, and have the DVDO upconvert to 1080i.

Hi, Ben:

Thank you for the information. Do you have a dedicated HTPC for hometheater or just use a regular pc as a htpc? I need to decide which case to buy for the HTPC. It is really appreciate if you could provide some info for me.

Han

Like Ben,

I prefer my HTPC over my previous Panasonic S97S Upconverting DVD player. The Panny did a good job, and for people that don't want to mess with computer configuration, might be a good option.

My HTPC combined with TheaterTek DVD Software gives me much better quality than the DVD Player. Once you adjust your Computer resolution to match the native resolution of the projector, and get the latest drivers, the picture is great.

I also have a 6800GT based system...

Does anyone have a good recommendation for a tuner card OTHER than ATI?
I've been looking at Hauppage and Pinnacle, but came across DViCO the other day.
I'm not sure if any of them have good track records for drivers, software, updates and overall quality products (not that i'm thrilled with ATI, but i would not care to venture something even worse).

Any opinions of experience would be appreciated. Opinions based on heresay or net reports are always welcome, but these are incredibly unreliable. It always seems that 50% of the people who use ATI cards have no problems, and then the other 50% get no rest at all. I'm in that latter category.
Have had great success with nvidia, but they dont' sell video capture/tuner cards. For some reason the ATI AIW cards i've used have always had at least one or two major glitches, sometimes fixed in driver updates, only to have another one popup.
I recently had to RMA two cards to ATI including one they had just returned to me. The last one i received (#3) had a broken pin on the HSF which i fixed with a chunk of cork and a wood screw, but damn, what idiot would send out a new yet broken card on a RMA return?
Bloody infuriating.

I use MediaPortal for my front end software whick an Open Source product. Gotta like a free product that works as good or better than MCE 2005 I used the VBox ATSC Cats Eye tuner card. Works great overall. HD is freaking awesome dudes.

Unfortunately HD content in Canada is still very limited. The best coverage is through Bell Expressvu from what i hear from a friend who is in the know.

I'm just looking for a decent tuner card and working software for our two office computers for basic tv. At some point, when HD gets a bit more commonplace, i will spring for a HD receiver specifically for the media and family rooms. When that point comes, so will a front projector.

You mentioned that NVIDIA doesn't sell tv cards but they actually do (SD tv) but they are meant for MCE:
NVIDIA® DualTV MCE tuner

i have the ati HD tuner card in my computer, and i like it ok.. but it is not as easy to use as the HD cable box, so i wound up just using the cable box, however if you have more free time than i (mabe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most) then the ati card would probably work for you, i just dont have the time to fiddle with it to get it to record what i want when i want, however i am pretty sure that it is possible, and the ati software seems pretty easy to use, and the hardware would probably be wonderful with microsoft media center OS.. dont know for sure thoughl..


i think it would be great to get a HD card for the computer, if you plan on recording HD movies, sense you can have pretty much unlimated recording space though the computer, and depdning on where you want to put the computer, you could just get a regular case, and get a RF keyboard/mouse, and have the actual computer in the next room, and just run longer cables to the reciever. if it were me, thats what i would do, just get the biggest server case you can afford, throw a crap load of hard drives in there, and record everything... thats just me though.

Thanks for the link skyhawk but no, these computers will not be running MCE and i'm not building a HTPC.
I'm just tired of the buggy ati drivers and software. Granted their software has had alot more time to mature and add features than most, but i've had both hardware and software problems over the years that i've had enough with ATI.
It seems there are so many more options now for all-in-wonder type cards or in the least, good tv tuners, so i thought i would look around.
Beyond Hauppage and Pinnacle, i was not aware of any other mainstream brands that might fit the bill.