Kworld ATSC-110

[jakep_82]

I just thought I'd mention that Kworld has a $15 rebate on the ATSC-110 right now. Newegg has them for about $76 with shipping. After rebate it's around $61. I posted a review on Newegg, and also updated the DVB and MythTV wikis to reflect my experience with this card. As far as I can tell it's the least expensive ATSC/QAM/NTSC card on the market and it works great with MythTV.

[unplug]

I am looking at this card and have some questions.

On the wiki, it says it does not work with PVR-150. Why do I want it to WORK WITH PRV-150? Does that mean I can't have both cards installed on the same machine together?

With reagrd to the QAM, does that mean I don't have to subscribe digital package from my cable company? I am having comcast extended basic, I can do something like
cable => KWorld ATSC-110 => Mythtv (both watching and recording)
without upgrade my plan?

Frankly I am trying the cheapest way to experience HDTV. I don't even have a HDTV tv set yet.

[jakep_82]

Apparently someone had trouble with a PVR-150 and this card. I have two PVR-150's and have zero problems. Regarding HD, yes you can get all the local broadcast channels in HD with just basic cable. You can also get them for free with an antenna if you live close enough to the broadcast towers.

[grokus]

How come the specification pages I can find from newegg, cnet etc. don't mention that this card and AVerTV HD A180 support QAM? I have done some searching but cannot get the answer. Thanks in advance.

[jakep_82]

My only guess is it's a software/driver issue in Windows. In Linux I can say without a doubt that QAM is supported on the Kworld card. I've been recording HD via QAM256 for more than a month without a problem.

[grokus]

Originally Posted by jakep_82

My only guess is it's a software/driver issue in Windows. In Linux I can say without a doubt that QAM is supported on the Kworld card. I've been recording HD via QAM256 for more than a month without a problem.

Thanks much. Good to know this.

About a year ago, I bought an ATI HDTV wonder card and played around with it a little bit on Windbloze, wanted to try if I could decode 256QAM off Comcast cable, it didn't work. OTA signals weren't strong enough either. So I gave up and sold the card on eBay.

[mr_yellow]

Hi All,

I'm curious what options/setup you used to get QAM256 with the kworld card? I'm very new to this all and I'm trying like every possible combination, but I'm not getting anything...

Any Advice?

Thanks,

[jakep_82]

I didn't get anything with mythtv-setup. I had to use atscscan from dvb-apps to make a channels.conf file that I imported into myth. I think you can find directions on the mythtv wiki. Also try both inputs on the card. I found that one worked for ATSC and the other QAM. They didn't seem to be interchangeable.

[mr_yellow]

Just so i'm clear on this, if I want to read the unencrypted HDTV digital cable, I gotta plug the cable into the digital antenna outlet of the card and not the analogue antenna socket right?

[Denver-Ed]

QAM stands for Quadrature amplitude modulation used on cable TV systems. VSB stands for vestigial sideband modulation and is used by U.S. HDTV brodcasters. Your choice in HD tuners should be capable of both QAM and VSB (they will always work VSB). Also note that the tuning frequencies of channels is different between cable and broadcast. For instance cable channel 60 is 441Mhz, broadcast channel 60 is 749Mhz.

Both the Kworld A-110 and the Avermedia A-180 both support QAM. The Wonder card does not.

Ed