TV Card Advice for Novice

stoneygossard

Guys,

I have nero7 and it has all the TV tuner software etc..Is this the equivalent of "Media Portal"?

Next, I want to ask, I want to buy a tv tuner that i can hook my vcr, ps2 and tv up to (ntl digital). Can you recommend something to me and any other hardware I may need to make it work e.g. adapters to make plugs etc fit together etc.?

I know this sounds like a real novice question but afterall, I am a novice.

Stoney

youcancallmeal

I have a Hauppage pvr-150 which works great for me. It was quite tricky to set up though because of all the cables and plugs I had to get so I could run broadband off the same cable output. What will your setup be and have you got windows media centre?

stoneygossard

youcancallme>al wrote:

What will your setup be and have you got windows media centre?

I will be putting a standard tv cable into the tv card (co ax for analogue tv until i get a scart thru the wall for digital). I also want to run my ps2 from it and a vcr, these are all just cabling issues though and i think i can sort them out.

I don't have windows media center but I do have Nero7 which I think offers all the facilities that WMC does and anyway, if not I can get "Media Portal" the open source media center software.

Is there anything else I should know? Like, if i purchase the tv card that you recommend (where did u purchase it from?), do I need extra fittings etc for my pc?I presume we are both in Ireland so you know what fittings are on tv's here etc?

Stoney

8T8

Not sure about Nero 7 edit: seems they have updated Nero Home into a more of a media center style app, full manual can be found here it doesn't have a whole lot of features though quite basic.

In case Nero 7 doesn't pan out something like Media Portal or BeyondTV would be required if you don't have WinXP MCE.

As for a TV tuner the basic Hauppage PVR-150 will suffice though if you want better image quality from the TV signal an ATI Theatre 550 pro would be a better choice.

[On a side note ATI are also prepping their own Catalyst media center software for exclusive use with their tuners so you would be able to use that as well when it comes out but it's really just Cyberlink PowerCinema with a new skin and some extra features & the 550 Pro comes with a copy of the regular PowerCinema anyway]

Traditionally tuners only come with a certain number of inputs so here is an example on how to connect everything;

RF/Coax {for use with a TV antenna or cable - VCR}
FM {for use with Radio}
Composite {standard AV input - NTL or PS2}
S-Video {standard AV input but better quality - NTL or PS2}

In order for the NTL box to output a signal to the TV tuner you require an adaptor (or cable) that will convert the scart output into composite like this one then use regular composite cables to make the connection.

Using the NTL box with s-video is a little trickier those adaptors above although they have s-video on them it doesn't work outputting a black & white picture. In order to have colour you need to a) take apart adaptor and make a modification or b) get one of these proper scart RGB to s-video converters.


For the PS2 the composite output cable should have come with the unit assuming you still have the cable.

If you want to use it with the s-video input then you need this PS2->s-video cable, you may be able to find them elsewhere but I wouldn't know however Whitedog do ship to IE.

When using the PS2 with a PC the picture quality can often be very poor it is recommended that you use the DScaler software which improves the image quality though of course you can use whatever program suits you best. DScaler would probably be useful if using the VCR to watch something as well.


An alternative option is to get a multi AV box and plug everything into that and the output from the multi AV box into the PC allowing you to use just one input on the TV Tuner for everything though that one is a manual switch there are some automatic ones out there as well but I couldn't say if they work with a PC.