Digital USB Tuner with mpeg4

[jmac698]

Hi,
Maybe someone can help me find a cheap usb digital tuner stick which supports mpeg4. My clearQAM source has several HD channels in mpeg4, and my ATSC sources are all mpeg2 at the moment, though I suppose everything will switch at some point.

Maybe there's other ways around this; the provided player software may not support it, but it might work in VLC. Only problem is that I can't figure out how to change channels in VLC, it seems like you have to type in raw MHz numbers and other stuff. Maybe there's some other software to do this, but free digital tuner software seems very hard to find to me.

Maybe I should say that, I think all tuners support mpeg4, if you can capture raw TS streams without viewing them, the only issue is that the software might think there's no signal, that it's audio-only, or something like that. The actual hardware and data is the same, I think.

[prouton]

Digital tuning cards, USB attached or internal, don't care about MPEG4 or MPEG2 -- they just hand across whatever bits they get from the selected channel. You do have to make sure you get a tuner card that's right for the broadcast system in your area of the world (in the US the standards are ATSC and QAM).

As for software to control the tuner, NextPVR is well supported and full featured. Check their Wiki to see if the tuner card you choose is supported.

[fk]

Support for MPEG4 depends on the software, not the hardware. Have you tried DVBViewer which will work with all digital tuners that uses BDA driver.

[jmac698]

As I already stated, I realize that *theoretically* all tuners would work, however I have one which doesn't, for this reason: it refuses to record, or change to a channel which is mpeg4. It's a Pinnacle 800i PCI card.

I had tried DVBviewer in the past on the Pinnacle card; but it didn't work, it's not in the compatibility list, and there's no mention of QAM support.

And my question meant, a tuner whose included software support mpeg4 would be ideal.

[fk]

All digital tuners from Terratec will work with the bundled software (Terratec Home Cinema), but in comparison to DVBViewer, which works with the Terratec cards, it is not nearly as powerfull.

[jmac698]

Thanks fk, however I want to make sure you realize I'm in an ATSC country, I can't use a DVB device/software.