Tv Capture Options

[Grasshopper7]

I'm building a PC for a buddy of mine who's computer skills are noobie at best. He wants a setup that can capture video: TV shows, sports and the like(aka Tivo) and also play the latest games.

Am I better off going with an ATI AIW like the X800XL or Windows Media Ed. with a standard video card and a TV Tuner card?

I've read several threads describing ATI's software and they aren't good, but if I can set this up for him will WMEd. be stable enough to meet his needs?

Right now I'm leaning towards the AIW card but am also concerned about connecting that card to his digital cable. Does the require additonal HW/SW or some other workaround?

Thanks for the help.

 

[kylebisme]

I highly recomend Windows Media Center Edition for easy to use Tivo like functionallity, but I'm pretty sure there are no publicly avalable drivers to support the AIW cards in MCE. Besides, it is nice to have the tuner and video card seperate so you can upgrade one when nesscary without having to ditch the other. That said, I use an ATI e-Home Wonder with MCE; but if I had to buy a new tuner card today it would be a Sapphire Theatrix card.

 

[Peter]

Separate tuner card, most definitely. You're going to upgrade the graphics card much more often than you'd like to part with the tuner.

Latest and greatest for analog TV:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-118-105&depa=0

If you want to hook up to a digital service, you need an appropriate card - DVB-C if it's digital cable. Alternatively, use an external set-top box just like you would with an ordinary TV, and hook that to the video or SVideo input of the tuner card. Currently, I prefer the latter because the software for the DVB cards tends to be no fun - incomplete, bug-ridden.

 

[kylebisme]

That isn't compatable with MCE is it?

 

[Peter]

No, that one's for "normal" Windows, runs in Linux too.

MCE requires TV cards to have an MPEG encoder chip on, even if it's an analog-TV card. You'd have to get the FlyTV MCE for this, which Newegg don't have. Furthermore, TV cards targeting Windows MCE won't have a remote, since MCE wants to see an "MCE remote" on the system.

 

[rise]

i'm considering this one for a new htpc i plan to build with some left over parts.

Text

i don't know much about the brand though. i have a diamond mmc-550 which looks similar and it works great. i use it on xp home with beyontv, although i might go with sage eventually.

i'm wondering if i even want to go to windows mce 2005 right now. how much of that, if any, will be integrated into longhorn anyway?

and as noted, you definitely want to go with a seperate tner than one on your vga.