What card do I need to get HD

[Cottonmouth]

I am getting a new pc and I want to get a dvb card. The pc has Vista Home Premium 64 bit with sp1. I want to buy a card that will work with this pc and get HD.
I am a newbie to the dvb cards but know a little about setting up fta receivers.
Thanks

[Mighty Thor]

hey cotton did you read this http://www.abadss.com/forum/104-pc-f...fo-sticky.html

[corsairf4u]

the simple answer to your question is the genpix skywalker-1. the more complicated answer is below ...

- b3v is now using n3 encryption so you can't get anything from b3v right now. you can only get d1sh and who knows how long that'll last.

- a cheap card like all the twinhans or the skystar-2 will only get standard def channels from d1sh. why? because d1sh uses TURBO-8PSK modulation for its high definition channels and none of the inexpensive dvb-s cards will do this.

- you really only have one choice if you want to get d1sh hi-def channels -- the genpix skywalker-1. that card's expensive, $240, so you may wanna think twice about getting it due to point #1.

- if you do get the skywalker, genpix doesn't recommend vista64. so you'd probably want to rebuild your system with XP or vista32.

as for the sticky, it's from a year and half ago and it's out of date. so much has changed since then it's hard to know where to begin. I'll just hit on two points.

- it talks about using s2emu and that doesn't work in n.a. anymore. you need to use emunation now.

- the sticky talks about ritzdvb. it is a great program and still works for sd channels but forget about trying to get d1sh hd channels with it. dvbdream, dvb+ or mt4-beta are the apps of choice for hi-def channels.

there's more to consider ...

- you also should get a video card or motherboard with onboard video that can decode h.264. when you offload h.264 to the video card you will drop cpu usage from 60%, 70%, 80% or even higher down to below 10% so it's worth getting the right video card. ATI HD2600 or any of the good 3xxx or 4xxx series cards will work. if you're an nvidia guy the 8600, 8800 gen2, 9800, etc. are good.

- codecs ... you're going to need learn about codecs. cyberlink powerdvd 8 is THE codec to use for hd channels because you can offload h.264 to the gpu with it.