Recommend me a TV Tuner for my new build please

HarryH99

Folks,
I've just built my first rig and now need a Tv Tuner PCI card, with dvr so that I can record, download to pmp, and look at on daily commute...
I've an analogue chorus signal at the min but may go to digital in a bit - so should be future proof...
Am I correct in looking at the hauppauge pvr-150??

Cheers

mossym

yup, that'll do nicely, it's rock solid, and one of the most popular capture cardsa round. it's Hardware encoding is nice as well, as it doesn't use cpu cycles

Talisman

The PVR-150 is an Analogue tuner only.

mossym

even with digital chorus you'll have to use sivdeo out of the chorus box into the card...i don't think any cards can decde digital chorus themselves can they?

ethernet

mossym wrote:

even with digital chorus you'll have to use sivdeo out of the chorus box into the card...i don't think any cards can decde digital chorus themselves can they?

Not legally anyway. You're right: NTL's/Chorus' lovely digital signal converted to analogue, only to be digitised by the TV card yet again. What a shame.

Could always throw in a PCI satellite card too for receiving unencrypred channels. In this case, there's a direct connection and none of this digital to analogue to digital conversion.

garethmc

Yea for Chorus analogue go for the hauppauge tuners. As your currently analogue why not go for the MCE 500. Dual tuner on one board enabling recording and watching Live TV on different channels also inbuild drivers for Vista. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

ntlbell

garethmc wrote:

Yea for Chorus analogue go for the hauppauge tuners. As your currently analogue why not go for the MCE 500. Dual tuner on one board enabling recording and watching Live TV on different channels also inbuild drivers for Vista. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

If you're using an ntl digital STB can you recored two digital channels at the same time or just analogue?

Fresh Pots

you can only record one digital channel at a time or one analog channel at a time!

ntlbell

itsabagofleaves wrote:

you can only record one digital channel at a time or one analog channel at a time!

the site states two channels at one time but doesn't state if it's digital

"Watch one channel while recording another with the WinTV-PVR-500 MCE and Windows XP Media Center Edition or Vista Home Premium or Ultimate."

HarryH99

Cheers folks...

I think the mce 500 is overkill - and pricey!

Also I think I'll stick to the analogue for a while longer, plump for the
PVR-150, and cross the digital bridge when I have to...

ethernet

ntlbell wrote:

the site states two channels at one time but doesn't state if it's digital

"Watch one channel while recording another with the WinTV-PVR-500 MCE and Windows XP Media Center Edition or Vista Home Premium or Ultimate."

If you have cable, then you'll have the analogue channels and the digital ones [once decoded by the STB].

In this case, you could record the output of the STB when recording a digital channel while, at the same time, watch one of the analogue channels [only the basic line up -- around 15-17 AFAIK].

However, if you've MMDS without multiroom, then you'd be stuck watching the one NTL digital channel.

311

I got a pvr 150 today ,vista drivers came with it
Great quality.

Mardee

Hi
I have chorus using a sagem itd 831 decoder box and i have bought a in home distributor however when i connect it the instructions seem to to refer to the sky remote to tune it in has anyone any expierence of this system or perhaps suggest another one ?

Mardee

ethernet

Mardee wrote:

Hi
I have chorus using a sagem itd 831 decoder box and i have bought a in home distributor however when i connect it the instructions seem to to refer to the sky remote to tune it in has anyone any expierence of this system or perhaps suggest another one ?

Mardee

What form of distribution are you using?

SouperComputer

Mardee, first of all, welcome to Boards and the HTPC Forum.

You really should create your own thread for this issue.

Nothingbetter2d

stay away from hauppauge's pvr 500mce if you plan on using vista x64 with 4gb ram or more it doesnt work...it make take some time until both ms & hauppauge resolve this