broshiggie
Member
CLIFF NOTES AT BOTTOM OF POST
Im in the market for a TV tuner and i was hoping someone could help me out. I am looking for a TV tuner to record tv shows and make a cheap htpc windows media center box with. Because i dont want to spend more than $50ish, that rules out the hauppage hardware mpeg 2 cards.
that just leaves me with a bunch of software encoding mpeg2 cards and the m179 which i can get for around $60. Out of the software cards it seems like hte leadtek winfast xp 2000 expert and deluxe are the best models.
I see a lot of reviews on newegg lauding the leadtek cards, but it seems like every single review on newegg is positive (not because the product is good, but they give 5 stars just for good RMA service...). I see a lot of ppl buying the leadtek expert so i guess it must be good, but at the same time it doesnt have hardware encoding and i am not sure if windows mce supports it.
I have searched for reviews on the m179 and i the only reference i saw was a small blurb in a 2 year old matchup of cards. I read on avsforums that windows mce supports the card, but most of the posts there just list the m179 as a valid hardware card and proceed to recommend the hauppage cards.
Ideally i would be able to do high quality mpeg2 encodes on my box (p4 1.8, 1 gig ram) and the card would be compatible with windows media center. So my questions are:
1) Are the leadtek cards supported by MCE
2) Anyone with the m179 want to give their impression of the card
3) Any opinions on other cards or the 3 cards in question are welcome as well
Im in the market for a TV tuner and i was hoping someone could help me out. I am looking for a TV tuner to record tv shows and make a cheap htpc windows media center box with. Because i dont want to spend more than $50ish, that rules out the hauppage hardware mpeg 2 cards.
that just leaves me with a bunch of software encoding mpeg2 cards and the m179 which i can get for around $60. Out of the software cards it seems like hte leadtek winfast xp 2000 expert and deluxe are the best models.
I see a lot of reviews on newegg lauding the leadtek cards, but it seems like every single review on newegg is positive (not because the product is good, but they give 5 stars just for good RMA service...). I see a lot of ppl buying the leadtek expert so i guess it must be good, but at the same time it doesnt have hardware encoding and i am not sure if windows mce supports it.
I have searched for reviews on the m179 and i the only reference i saw was a small blurb in a 2 year old matchup of cards. I read on avsforums that windows mce supports the card, but most of the posts there just list the m179 as a valid hardware card and proceed to recommend the hauppage cards.
Ideally i would be able to do high quality mpeg2 encodes on my box (p4 1.8, 1 gig ram) and the card would be compatible with windows media center. So my questions are:
1) Are the leadtek cards supported by MCE
2) Anyone with the m179 want to give their impression of the card
3) Any opinions on other cards or the 3 cards in question are welcome as well
