Digital Receiver TV Card

[Lonz]

A friend of mine recently bought a PC from a well known internet outlet and it came with a digital TV receiver and remote. I haven't really taken much notice of them before but I'm moving into a smaller room and would love to play everything from my PC/TV/PS3 through my 22" Samsung monitor.

My question is, can anyone recommend me a good value one, that will integrate with my Vista Ultimate 64Bit Media Center program. I'm not too sure how it would work. Is it simple? As in, I install it and then it will appear on WMC or will I have to do some more "tweeking" to integrate it?

Also, can someone tell me if they *should* be able to receive and playback FreeSat HD channels?

My currently spec:

Q6600
IP35 Pro
4GB RAM
8800GTX

Any help appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[gnetx]

To get your future TV card easily integrated into Vista Media Centre, you'll need one with BDA drivers. Most product descriptions include whether the card comes with BDA drivers, and you should find that almost all internal (PCI / PCI-E) cards fulfil that requirement. My favourite card at the moment is a Compro Videomate DVB-E700, a dual-tuner PCI-E DVB (Freeview) card (here). Dual tuner cards make watching and scheduling recordings much easier, and Windows Media Centre detects them both without any problems. The other Compro cards are also good, but if you've got the money for a dual tuner card, go for it.

The above only applies to Freeview. Getting Freesat on your PC is a whole different problem. You'll need a different kind of TV card for your PC, one which supports DVB-S. I believe Vista Media Centre will detect and be able to use DVB-S1 cards without any problems, providing you've already got the required satellite dish pointed in the right direction. Just like the set-top boxes, if you're wanting Freesat HD, you'll need a different type of tuner, and will want to get hold of a DVB-S2 (though some HD channels may work with S1) card. Unfortunately, S2 is not natively supported by Vista Media Centre as far as I know, so you'd have to watch your HD broadcasts through your TV card's supplied software.

Though most cards come with their own remote controls, you'd be best getting a Microsoft Windows Media Centre remote, which is USB (not a proprietary connection to the TV card), and works best with Media Centre. I can't see that OcUK currently stock this, so you might want to call them and ask about it, or just get the Compro K100 (of which I have no personal experience).

Hope this helps. If you want any further assistance or clarification, please let me know.

-G

 

[Lonz]

Wow, great reply, cheers bud.

EDIT: Quick question. I might as well forget about Freesat, was just a passing thought really. However, it looks like my new room won't have an aerial socket, so I'll need a card with one that pick up the signal on it's own. Or am I just better off getting a big antena from somewhere?

 

[gnetx]

No worries, glad to help.

Get a big antenna! You'll want to get the best possible signal to ensure any recordings you schedule actually record! Especially for Freeview...

 

[^Andy^]

Vista media center does indeed support S2 based cards. I use the Nova S2 HD in my vista media center pc running without issues (using the Vista TV Pack and edited dll to allow H264 HD reception).

You don't currently need an S2 card to receive HD in the UK as both BBC and ITV are currently broadcasting HD using bog standard S1 - this may change in future but for now you can receive those channels fine using a standard S1 based card.

I can also vouch for the compro e700 dvb-t card as I am also using one of those for terestrial tv within media center - it's a great card.

 

[gnetx]

Vista media center does indeed support S2 based cards. I use the Nova S2 HD in my vista media center pc running without issues (using the Vista TV Pack and edited dll to allow H264 HD reception).

You don't currently need an S2 card to receive HD in the UK as both BBC and ITV are currently broadcasting HD using bog standard S1 - this may change in future but for now you can receive those channels fine using a standard S1 based card.

I can also vouch for the compro e700 dvb-t card as I am also using one of those for terestrial tv within media center - it's a great card.

Cheers Andy. I'm still officially under NDA about some of the tweaks you mentioned using in getting S2 HD working in Vista Media Centre, so didn't want to mention it. You're right though, it does work - but not without tweaking as the OP requested. We'll be waiting until Windows 7 for that functionality to be released to all.

I also felt it unwise to recommend a Freesat solution based on assumptions of future HD capabilities if they do indeed change HD to S2 only... but again you were right about this currently being the case. By Windows 7 release, when the software officially catches up, we'll be in a much better position to go HD on our PCs...