HTPC (Win MCE) + TV Subscription packages

[Tobeman]

I intend, through sheer boredom and having nothing better to save my money for (infact I have lots to save for, but everything I *need* is way more than I have) an HTPC. Now, I am confident with analogue + digital TV tuners as I have fitted them before, but we are on NTL here. Now although we are still on the horrible analgoue NTL service (god knows why we haven't upgraded yet, puts our Sony TV set to shame until you shove a DVD on!), but we shall soon upgrade to digital service. As much as I'd love to upgrade to Sky, Mum hates the dish, its not cheap, and we have a decent bundle with NTL for phone and broadband also, we don't watch much TV either so..

Anyway, I have no idea how I would connect up an NTL digi-box to the HTPC! How does MCE download product listings for TV channels coming from an external source and not an inbuilt TV tuner? I'm sure we could probably save money by switching to Freeview, but I'm sure the folks would sorely miss the crappy American TV they currently watch in the afternoons so thats not an option

Please explain! Thanks for the help

[pak000]

i don't use mce, i use gbpvr and have telewest. I feed the signal into the composite inputs of my card and away i go. I would use s-video, but my telewest box doen't support it. for tv guides i use xmltv. When it comes to changing channels, if i use the remote for my pvr it just makes the card "believe" it is recording a different channel, but of course the telewest box is the important one. It can get a bit frustrating, but its ok. If you want to go for something more fancy, you could try getting an ir blaster and setting it so your computer can control the ntl box

[weebroonieuk]

i think u get those witjh the mce remote

ive got mce now and its superb and i still have remnants of that gbpvr on my laptop and i cant remove it