Sabrent Tuner Any Good?

[Anonymous]

I just purchased a Sabrent TV Tuner card that also has FM in. It was on sale at TigerDirect so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I've searched the forums for anyone mentioning this tuner, but nothing comes up. It is in transit to me so I do not know the model number or anything right now (and TigerDirect doesn't have it for sale anymore).

I was wondering if this card works with any of the software out there. I checked each company's websites but couldn'd find mention of it anywhere there either. I am kinda just hoping someone's heard of this card and can tell me either "It's ok, keep it" or "Man, that card sucks! Send it back!" Any info you guys can offer is much appreciated, thanks.

[maiku]

Any chance it was this one?

(If so, I vote -- "Man, that card sucks!  Send it back!" :)  )

Just kidding...if it is that one you may have luck with MythTV under Linux or Beyond TV.  Most of the other PVR apps only support TV cards with hardware-based encoders.

[Anonymous]

That is the card, yes. Thanks for helping me out. I couldn't find any info on it from Sabrent's website, and tigerdirect has little info on it also. Hmmmm...... maybe I will send it back. Any suggestions for a cheapie tv tuner with hardware encoding? Something under 50 bucks?

Thanks again!

[rampy]

I've never heard of Sabrent... but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I did find AVerMedia UltraTV? Media Center PCI 500 for 59.99 and it's at least supported by sageTV (maybe others I didn't check)... but i've never used that card, so that's not a recommendation =)

There's a little more variety in the 70 buck range if you don't need a remote... like the OEM ATI e-home wonder and the pvr150MCE...and  a few others that escape me =)

rampy

[caldodge]

If the card is a Sabrent SBT-TV FM, the chipset Tigerdirect mentions is apparently Linux-compatible - at least, it shows up in lists of mythtv-compatible tuners.  As to whether that particular card works with Linux, I plead ignorance.

Hardware encoding for under 50 bucks? Not likely?

If the Sabrent turns out not to work for you, and you're willing to go with software encoding, the least expensive option I'm aware of is at surpluscomputers.net.
They have Win-TV GO PCI tuner cards for $19.95 (shipping included).

I've installed two of these on my home Linux boxen, and one on my mom's Linux system (all running Fedora Core 3 and MythTV (atrpms.net version)).  They work fine, aside form the occasional lockup (gotta keep the capture cards cool).

Calvin

[Anonymous]

Just saw this thread. I have this card and it works on my Slackware 10.1 machine running MythTV. I used the saa7134 driver with the 2.6.11 kernel. You'll need to include card=42 when you load the module and everything should work. The audio may not appear to work, but, at least with my setup, it's just very quiet. I stuck a WinTV GO in there and the audio is fine, so I'm pretty sure it's because of the Sabrent card.

The problem I'm having is that the remote control doesn't work. The current drivers don't have the remote control enabled for this card. I saw a patch out there once that might work with this card, but I haven't tried it

I'm using a Duron 900 with 256MB of RAM and I can watch live tv at 480x480 with only a bit of frame dropping while changing channels. I can record (but not watch) at 640x480 just fine.

[William Avery]

   U won't know until u receive what chipset u will get. Did not
get Phillips so can't speak for that.  Received Conexant BT878.  Everything is good including Video.  But XP (Of Course...you know who) will not accept the
video driver.  So, there is no sound...except for the FM radio.  I think Sabrent
knows this because if you look at their ad carefully (Tiger Direct which is Fantastic) it never says anything about being able to hear anything except a
mention about FM radio which does work.  TV has a 9 picture scanner with a
3 second delay each channel.  Kinda neat for the money but u would expect
to at least get sound.

[nomoneynomo]

  U won't know until u receive what chipset u will get. Did not
get Phillips so can't speak for that.  Received Conexant BT878.  Everything is good including Video.  But XP (Of Course...you know who) will not accept the
video driver.  So, there is no sound...except for the FM radio.  I think Sabrent
knows this because if you look at their ad carefully (Tiger Direct which is Fantastic) it never says anything about being able to hear anything except a
mention about FM radio which does work.  TV has a 9 picture scanner with a
3 second delay each channel.  Kinda neat for the money but u would expect
to at least get sound.

I have the same card(conexant bt878) and am also using Xp but I haven't had any problem with the sound. Did you install the jumper that goes from the Tv tuner card to the sound card? The only problem I have is the remote doesnt work but everything else works great.

[Anonymous]

The bt878 version of the card is supported in Linux 2.6.15 and works great, there are also instructions on the video4linux mailing list for intalling the patch.

In my opinion, this is the best low cost card you can get.

[guest]

anyone know how to get the remote to work?