TV Cards

[Vroomparrot]

I bought a Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro PCI recently but would hesitate to recommend it as it was painful getting it to work properly. I had to use their beta software and drivers in the end. It's ok now but I wish I had gone for the Hauppauge Nova-T 500 (the other card I considered at the time) which other people are recommending.

I think I may have a look at MediaPortal this weekend - it looks interesting. Not heard of it before.

[Funkstar]

I was also wondering about software, I know Funkstar mentioned MediaPortal but is it as simple as installing and running on a standard XP machine to get an interface like the below?

Pretty much. Have a look on their forums (http://www.team-mediaportal.com) and Wiki to make sure about your hardware etc.

You will also need some channel icons if you want it looking like that screen shot. There is a couple of zip files in the forums with all the UK Freeview logos

[directhex]

You will also need some channel icons if you want it looking like that screen shot. There is a couple of zip files in the forums with all the UK Freeview logos

damn, i've been pulling things from lyngsat-logo manually :x

[Funkstar]

haha

there is one for the radio stations as well

[directhex]

i might like mediaportal a little more if it wasn't so insular - i'd love to be able to use it as a front-end to a mythtv back end. or vice versa. it's technically feasable, but the core developers just aren't interested in non-Windows features

[mallett]

iv got the nova-t 500 and its very good, would recommend it to everyone! although the wintv software that comes with it is painful and i had problems getting it working with mediaportal, but was a few months back when it was still new out so the support was poor.

now im using it with vista, and it was so easy. just got the vista drivers from Hauppauge web site and then loaded up media centre, everything else was done and got to watching straight away. no problem with recording 2 different channels while watching something thats already been recorded and the quality is very good to, even with fast moving video (watched match of the day after recording with no ghosting)

brilliant product if you wanna watch and record freeview

[directhex]

recording freeview takes no processor time, and displaying it requires only a low-end machine

[sp3n]

can the nova-t 500 work in duel mode for analogue tv? as in not freeview but terrestrial tv with duel tuners?

[Funkstar]

no. it is DVB-T only

[sp3n]

thanks for letting me know!

does such a card exist that has duel tuners for terrestrial tv? the area im in doesnt have freeview but i still want the duel tuner functionality of recording 2x or watching tv whilst recording... any ideas?

thanks again

[Funkstar]

The Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 is the only one i know of. It has the added advantage of being a hardware MPEG-2 capture card as well, so has minimal system requirements for encoding.
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/pro...500mcekit.html

Although you might actually be cheaper getting 2x PVR-150s though as they are usually more wide spread.

Being a hardware card and MCE compatible, third party software support is pretty good.

[markbrown83]

You can buy a Nova T 500 digital tv card from ebuyer using Google checkout for £36.76 (inc delivery - saver delivery).

Really good deal, might get one at the end of the month. Does anyone know how long the Google Checkout deal will last?

Mark

[Funkstar]

It's a bit more than that Mark, delivery and VAT are added in the second page of the google checkout which will make it about £47 or so.

Still pretty good for a dual tuner though

[markbrown83]

It's a bit more than that Mark, delivery and VAT are added in the second page of the google checkout which will make it about £47 or so.

Still pretty good for a dual tuner though

Yeah I know - sorry, didn't realise that until after I had posted the message.

However, I did buy a maxtor external 60 gig HDD USB 2.0 from ebuyer for £25 inc VAT and P&P. thats a good deal.