What TV Card

[stoner]

Lads I'm at the stage no where I have all my MPs and DIVX moves on my media PC and I've it networked and hooked up the broadband.

I've gone through two TV cards, and while they appear in the device manager as being installed correctly, media centre does not like them
One is a flyTV unit and the other is a Stream PCI TV7134RF TV tuner/radio card. I think they are the same card rebranded I can only see a tiny difference between the codes on the main chips etc.

Do I need a different card, if so what do I need, I want an S video in and a co ax in. I read in the MS Media Centre manual that media centre can only deal with one type of TV signal, ie two SKY inputs or two digital inputs so I'm abit worried. I assume that will just watch the co ax tv signal on the normal XP platform while the medi centre records the digital signal,

note the tuner box i have is an Irish NTL unit, it gives about 100 "digital " stations from a scart source ( that I'll change to s video) and it also gives an independant 15 stations from an analogue co ax connection. I really want to record from the scart source, I have the IR blaster that I will set up etc when I can view the info on the Media centre platform.

Question
1) What card should I get to display the signal on Media PC
2) also having difficulty getting DVDs to play on Media centre, I installed Inter Video decoding and media player can play a DVD etc, but when I go into media centre and go to load the DVD a black screen comes up and I have to shut down media centre, any ideas??

Thanks agian in advance.

Regards

Stoner

[lisag]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/m...erlisting.mspx

[HSC]

Originally Posted by stoner

Question
1) What card should I get to display the signal on Media PC
2) also having difficulty getting DVDs to play on Media centre, I installed Inter Video decoding and media player can play a DVD etc, but when I go into media centre and go to load the DVD a black screen comes up and I have to shut down media centre, any ideas??

1./ sounds like you need an analogue card - two suggestions would be the Hauppage range (150, 250, 500) or the ATI Theatre 550
2./ sounds like your video card drivers may not be the correct version (what are they) - also use the deccheck utility (MS Download) to check your decoder


let us know

[stoner]

thanks for the info, I'll buy one of those cards now, I assume I get a dual one

The video card is a 7800GT, it playes BF 2 etc so the drivers are fine, and I'll check out the decoder also ,

It seems my graphics card is not on the list, I could do a swop for my 6800 GT but the 7800 is quiet so I'll stick with it, I somehow lost the code for CyberLink PowerDVD it came with the burner, but the CPU came with interlink WinDVD (installed) so I'll mess around with it later

thanks to all

[jonsayers]

I'd suggest the Haupauge HVr-1100 or HVR-1300 card. Hybrid so it's Analogue and Digital. We ship these cards in our PC's and they work really well. Means to you can change the TV setup at anytime. i.e setup for NTL now, then you can change to DVB-T or normal Analogue by re-running the MCE Setup.

Media Center can only display one type of TV signal. i.e Dual Sky Dual Digital not 1 x Sky + 1 x Analogue This is a limitation of the software and not the hardware.

[stoner]

thanks, I just ordered the HVR 1100 I assume the MS remote along with the IR booster I got with it will al work together, if they daont can you let me know please so I can cancel it

Thanks again

[jonsayers]

don't forgot to install the SofMCE Setup or the Analogue side of the card won't work. Any problems post em up.

[stoner]

Poor Picture

Lads, it took me long enough but i finially went about setting up this card, I got the Haupauge HVr-1100 as advised. I have set the software up as Dublin Ireland and thought the PC how to change stations on the box using the IR blaster. I even get the guide etc, the picture and sound are in sync, the only thing is that the picture on the PC is very poor, it was black and white to
begin with but now its bad quality colour, its not a lead issue as i have tried various leads including the ones that go straight to the TV ( I have wired in a by pass) both the S vido and the yellow com lead from the tuner box to the Haupauge HVr-1100 produce identically poor picture. even though both of these leads produce great pciture when hooked up to the TV, either on their own or at the same time ( i can split the screen to view both comp and S video pictures from the NTL box straight to the PC.) The picture displayed on the PC side is very bad.
When i split the screen the difference between the two is very noticeable, the colour quality and the frame rate are very poor.

Anyone have any ideas?

once again, windows media centre 2005 , 2 Gb ram, 250 GB HDs, 7800 GT G card, Haupauge HVr-1100 tuner card.
DVD, Divx , radio and sound are all great, this is the last issue i have

[Nick Cartwright]

Have you chewcked the format of the video input. I get this sometimes i
f I have been watching an NTSC Laser Disc and then switch to SKY which is PAL. Or vica versa.

There may be more than one PAL format too, try them all as I can't remember which one is right for UK and Ireland.

[stoner]

Thanks Nick,

I've tried that , there are approx 8 different PALs and yes it does make a difference which one I have it set to, but even at the best setting the picture is poor. Its a pain really, I might try a mail into Haupauge, see what they say.