TV Tuner Card Help

[sgs]

Tv-tuner newbie, needs help, insights, web references... Have two cable boxes that perform tuning, each hooked to vcr's. Want to replace both vcr's with my existing pc. Am happy with my ATI Radeon 9200 SE (agp, 128 mb) under Win XP pro (1 gb memory). Want to be able to send cable signal from both boxes to same PC, each (simultaneously) recording to hard disk. Have C, D drives (internal) and F drive external, so I can route simultaneous recordings to different hard disks, if needed. Also want to be able to record from 1 cable box as I'm playing signal from other box. Also want to record long event (e.g. sports) and start playing recording from beginning while event recording still in progress.

Should I get a tuner card or an ATI all-in-wonder card? For tuner card, is powerful/moderately priced software available? Should I get 1 tuner/video card or two? Do I need to upgrade my system memory to 2gb or 4gb? Where can I go for further research?

 

[imported_keebler]

My personal suggestion would be to look into a program like Beyond TV which I use to control my recordings. I use a 9800 pro to output to my tv, and currently use a Haupage tv capture card.

From my experience, you will want as many capture cards as shows you plan to record at the same time, so if you want to record 2 shows at once, you will want 2 cards. I would also suggest you buy capture cards that do their job in hardware rather than software as this will help prevent issues while doing more than one thing at a time.

Even if you don't buy beyond tv, read their forums for many good suggestions.