Spec me a TV Card

[Aidoscuz]

Hey all

A friend of mine is looking for a TV tuner to record NTL from. He's got digital but the STB is in another room so he'd just be plugging the RF lead from the wall into the tuner. I presume that this would give him the regular NTL analogue channels and that he'd be able to use an EPG to record from them with a program like Media Portal?

Does anyone have any recommondations for TV Cards to do this? I was thinking of the following cards:
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 Media Centre Edition
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1300 Media Centre Edition
They're all available from overclockers.co.uk (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...d=56&subid=169)

He's using XP Home, so do the Media Centre Editon cards only work on XP MCE or can they be used with home?

Thanks in advance

[Aidoscuz]

Anyone?

My friend is looking to order tomorrow so I'd really appreciate some advice before then. I suppose I mainly need to know if the tuners will work with XP Home.

[deksawyer]

They will work but if he's only got 1 source, then the pvr-150 will do the trick.

Keep in mind that the mce editions don't come with a remote or transmitters to change the channels on the ntl box...............

D.

[MacBurp]

The differece between the XP version and MCE version of all of these cards is the drivers. Pick the card you need (the PVR-150 is a good card) and download the latest driver for XP from www.hauppauge.co.uk

regards,
Paul

[Aidoscuz]

Thanks for the replies. My friend won't need a remote to change channels since he's not using the NTL box, he's just using the RF cable straight from the wall. Can the remote be used to change channels with this setup?

Also, is the top driver on this page the right one for the PVR-150 MCE in XP Home? http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/sup...t_new_pvr.html

[Steve.J.Davies]

You mate has digital and also has an RF output from the wall ? How did he get NTL to install that ? I have NTL digital and no RF from the wall at all - just the digital cable.
Is he just looking to view the analogue stuff with his card (and they put a gizmo outside the house) ?

[tim_kay]

The retail pack of PVR150 which is widely available around £60 does have the M/s usb receiver and remote control, which is a great bonus. It also includes infra reds for channel changing your box so you can use the mce pc indepandantly with its own EPG and never pickup your stb remote ever again. A good solution until cablecard comes to the UK.

[Aidoscuz]

Originally Posted by Steve.J.Davies

You mate has digital and also has an RF output from the wall ? How did he get NTL to install that ? I have NTL digital and no RF from the wall at all - just the digital cable.
Is he just looking to view the analogue stuff with his card (and they put a gizmo outside the house) ?

I think he just has some RF points lying around from when he only had analogue, I don't think he got anything extra installed by NTL. I have a similar system - I've got digital on my TV downstairs while I just have an RF lead going into a TV upstairs on which I get the analogue channels.

Anyway, my friend's decided to go for the WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition. As far as I can tell this comes with a remote. Can anyone post a link to the exact driver to use for XP Home?

[Steve.J.Davies]

Doesn't it come with a software CD ? should be on there if not in windaz already.

[waynster]

I bought the PVR500-MCE on Saturday - I have only had a quick play but I am sure once it gets up and running it will be excellent - I just have a few other issues with the machine to sort first to get it to work (one being how I was electrocuted from my cable TV input !! Anyone have any idea how many volts/amps these things should put out? Surely not so many that touching the earth is extrememly painful)

The main issue is right now that I don't have media edition of XP on the machine I am testing it on - only standard XP and Vista full home. Vista full home is crashing a bit, but its an old machine so I am not expecting miracles, though what I did see when I got the remote to work looks outstanding. I get delivery of the new machine this week, and I think what I will do is buy Windows XP MCE with the upgrade voucher to Vista, get it running and fully test it before upgrading - best to wait a short while until all the drivers are fully available.