TV Card XP/Media Center

DazedNFuzed · 4 May 2006 at 21:09

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

Logan09 · 5 May 2006 at 00:57

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.

DazedNFuzed · 5 May 2006 at 07:06

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.

Baron_Samedi · 5 May 2006 at 08:15

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 :-)

Logan09 · 5 May 2006 at 08:28

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.

DazedNFuzed · 5 May 2006 at 08:55

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.

Lanz · 5 May 2006 at 09:26

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

Logan09 · 5 May 2006 at 09:43

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.

Baron_Samedi · 5 May 2006 at 09:56

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.

Otacon · 5 May 2006 at 10:25

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?

Rambaud · 5 May 2006 at 19:17

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.

Baron_Samedi · 5 May 2006 at 21:05

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.