TV Card XP/Media Center

Associate
Joined
30 Mar 2006
Posts
69
Location
Essex
Looking to purchase a TV card up to £100 (or there abouts) i have Xp Pro installed at the Mo but do have Media center if needed, would love to be able to record whilst watching other channels, also i have 20" NEC Wide screen monitor would this affect any thing?

If i installed Media center would that affect any applications of drivers, or are they same as Xp drivers?


As always i would love some feedback on this please people ;)
 
Associate
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
719
Location
Rainford, nr St Helens
DazedNFuzed said:
Looking to purchase a TV card up to £100 (or there abouts) i have Xp Pro installed at the Mo but do have Media center if needed, would love to be able to record whilst watching other channels, also i have 20" NEC Wide screen monitor would this affect any thing?

If i installed Media center would that affect any applications of drivers, or are they same as Xp drivers?


As always i would love some feedback on this please people ;)

If you want to record whilst watching TV you'll need two tuners. The only card I've seen with dual tuners is the Fusion HDTV DVB-T Dual Freeview TV Tuner Card, but it's quite expensive. The other (cheaper) option is to get 2 DVB-T cards.

If you're gonna be using MCE then you need to make sure the drivers are BDA-certified (ie. compatible with media centre), which most cards are. Something like the Leadtek Winfast DTV1000-T or Hauppauge Nova-T would be fine.

There's no real difference between DVB-T cards in terms of quality (that's really influenced by the decoder you use - I'd reccomend nvidia's purevideo decoder), so you might as well go for value. The difference in price mainly reflects the quality of software you get with it & whether a decent remote is included, but seeing as you're using MCE and not their software (and you'll presumably be using the MCE remote) this doesn't matter.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
30 Mar 2006
Posts
69
Location
Essex
I was contemplating this bad boy :)

Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition Dual TV Tuner (GX-028-HA)

only other thing that would concern me is space, I'm already short on slots due to my crossfire MB, i have one free PCI slot and one Free PCI-Express slot, the PCi slot is between a audigy 2 sound card and a x1900xt that i may be changing fan on.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,691
Another option for a twin tuner card that will fit a PCI express slot is the Terratec 2400i DT.

Now, I had some issues with this card, but touch wood after installing the latest drivers *and* thanks to Terratec support, setting the affinity of the program to one core rather than both, everything seems fine!

I no longer get too few channels, and the picture stuttering then crashing problem - all is well at the moment and I am well chuffed at being able to schedule two recordings at once :)
 
Associate
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
719
Location
Rainford, nr St Helens
DazedNFuzed said:
I was contemplating this bad boy :)

Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition Dual TV Tuner (GX-028-HA)

For some reason I was sure you wanted freeview, but if you only want an analogue tv card the PVR-500 is an excellent choice. If you want freeview however you will need to get a DVB-T card.
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
30 Mar 2006
Posts
69
Location
Essex
Yeah i was interested in the free view channels.

I have herd alto of bad reviews regarding the Terratec 2400i DT? But the PCIE slot is very appealing, and may save me having to purchase new MB. :(
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Nov 2002
Posts
6,852
Location
Romford
The Leadtek Winfast DTV1000-T Digital TV Tuner Card is a good, cheap tuner for MCE, you can also install two of them so u can record and watch at the same time. They are also on This Week Only :)
 
Associate
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
719
Location
Rainford, nr St Helens
If you only have the 1 spare PCI slot & 1 PCI-e slot then I'd say your best bet is to go with the Terratec 2400i DT. AFAIK there's only 2 cards that have dual freeview tuners, the Terratec (PCI-e) and the Fusion HDTV DVB-T Dual Freeview (PCI). As you said the PCI slot is between your sound card and graphics card, if you change the fan on your X1900XT then it may mean you won't be able to fit a PCI card in. So I'd definitely go for the PCI-e Terratec.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,691
Tbh, I was a few minutes away from RMA'ing my Terratec card but the new drivers and ensuring that the Power Cinema application runs only on one core has sorted my problems and I am well chuffed!

In fact, if my testing carries on as successfully as it is, I will be selling on my Nebula Digitv.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2004
Posts
21,921
Location
All over
Baron_Samedi said:
Now, I had some issues with this card, but touch wood after installing the latest drivers *and* thanks to Terratec support, setting the affinity of the program to one core rather than both, everything seems fine!
Which program would that be? Or are you not running Media Center?
 
Associate
Joined
15 Apr 2003
Posts
1,878
Location
Hertfordshire
I have been using the USB version of Nebula's Digi TV for ~ 2 years, and it's been fine. But it's fed by a roof aerial.

The latest software allows you to record and watch at the same time. In fact, you can record several programs at once.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,691
Otacon, I use the Power Cinema Application supplied with the card, but there are BDA drivers for the unit.

Rambaud, I agree that the Nebula can be a top item but while the software has fancy features such as multiple recordings off the same multiplex, these features have been added at the expense of recurring problems with hibernation etc that have not been cured.
 
Back
Top Bottom