Uk Pvr

[BigRon]

Total noob when it comes to HTPC's, was wondering what card would I need to take feeds from Freeview and/or Sky in the UK then run through MCE?

Cheers

RoN

[Funkstar]

Freeview is eary, just get a DVB-T card, there are heaps out there

Because Scan and Hexus are so friendly i've been dishing out these links the past couple of days

here is their full list of digital TV cards (some are DVB-S as opposed to DVB-T)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...Thumbnails=yes

probably the brand leader:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...ProductID=9833

and a nice budget entry (very good card too)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=288373

Sky is different and very difficult. I hear it can be done with a fully featured DVB-S card like the Hauppauge Nexus-S with the CAM addon module. You will then need need the appropriate CAM card (looks like a PCMCIA card) but i can't remember which one it is. then there is some messing around to be done with registering your Sky smart card with an actual Sky box before it can be used or something. total cost for all that is around £200 - £250 and if Sky change their encription at any point you are out of luck.

hope this helps

BTW, this is *not* a way to get free sky, you need a valid supscription and smart card (and probably hardware too) for this to work, if at all

enjoy

[BigRon]

Thx,

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/pro...300mcekit.html


Would this take a scart lead thats split into the 3 coloured wires? That would take input from a SKY box?

Its the only 1 I've found so far with AV connection or is it an output??

[Funkstar]

To add to what i posted yesterday. I completely forgot about just hooking Sky to the analog input on these DVB-T cards. You still need to control your sky box manually and there is no way to use the PVR to schedule recordings etc. (unless you use software like MythTV that can control it via an IR transmitter on the serial port, but that is a *lot* of work)

You want to get a SCART lead that splits into s-video and stereo audio. Should be easy to find one of these.

The KWorld has composite and s-video inputs, should be able to use that along with your sound card to capture the audio side of things. I'd be surprised if MCE couldn't cope with this, but then again i've never seen or used it so i'm only guessing.