I am considering buying a desktop with Vista Home Premium. It comes with one TV tuner card, with NTSC/ATSC hi def. I would like to have an extra TV tuner, to give me the option to record 2 shows simultaneously. The cost of the PCs I have researched with the dual tuners is a little high, so I was thinking of buying a PC with one tuner, and adding a second tuner card later in an open slot. Can anyone tell me if this would work, and if so, what might be the downside of doing this.
Yes. this will work. I just bought a similar computer but have not set it up yet. I am wondering thought... does anybody know that if you just have standard cable you can record it or do you need to subscribe to digital or HD channels to be able to record ?
I have not bought an additional card, but i looked it up and it is possible 2 record two shows with the two cards. The computer i am getting is the HP m8200n media center PC with the tv tuner and media center/vista home premium. We just have standard cable tv and i want to know if i can just plug that cable into my card and be able to record...?
If you want to use 2 tuner cards, make sure the cards have built-in mpeg2 encoders. I have 2 hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 (cost about 80.00 each), on my computer. Without those hardware encoders the computer will have to do all the work, which will cause very heavy slowdown. I have standard cable and I can record all the channels don't know if it will be different on the premiun channels. Theres another tuner card the model WinTV-PVR-500(cost about 140.00) that has 2 tuners on it. Remember with the hardware encoders the only work the computer will have to do is write to the hard drive. I can surf the internet and watch a dvd movie while at the same time recording two shows in the background all this on my semprom 2800. As far as software, I've been using sagetv for 3 years (once you buy the software the program guide is free, haven't had to pay anything after the original purchase). I've also been trying out beyondTV and I am very impress with it, they have a 21 day demo on it. Give it a try. It'll be my next upgrade.
thanks for all the info. jony, can you tell me if the supplied tv card that comes with the HP computers has the MPEG encoder? Also, what is the benefit of using sagetv vs the program guide that comes with media center on the HP? THanks.
I checked the HP website and looked at there media center computers, but theres no mfg listed for the tuner cards "ATSC-NTSC TV tuner with PVR". Right now I have a MSI anywhere tuner card on my desktop computer (card cost me 35.00). It's a software encoder type card and it does slow down my computer, but it can timeshift rewind fast fwd etc, but I wouldn't put this card in my sagetv computer. I'm sure whatever card they put in it, has been tested and can do the job. But it would be extremely helpful to know if they have software or hardware encoders. Hauppauge brags about there tuner cards having hardware encoders, it's not in small print. I use windows xp pro on my sagetv setup, I wouldn't be able to give an opinion on windows media center program guide. But if it's a free subscription I would at least give it a try. Sagetv has been very reliable, it always records the programs on time, and it runs 24/7 for weeks at a time without problems. Right now I'm testing out BeyondTV4 software which is similar to sagetv but the interface is very different and easier to use and program. The more I use it, the more I know I'll be buying it at the end of my trial period.
