tv tuner cards recommendations??

[50cent1228]

any recommendations on internal tv tuner cards that would work for win xp pro sp2 and would as well work with dish network reciever???

i was recommended the h 150 in the off topic forum before the thread got locked for being in the wrong forum...do you guys agree with the 150 or do u think i should go for another one...another thing i don't want to be spending extra money buying sage tv or beyond tv

thnx in adv

 

[RyanM]

Are you looking for SDTV recording or do you want HDTV? Because the latter is pretty much suckville right now as far as hardware and software support.

 

[50cent1228]

sdtv would be fine but hdtv would be great

 

[Varun]

The ATI 550 is amazing, and the 650 adds OTA HD Support. I would recommend the ATI unless you are running Linux.

 

[slpaulson]

My newish ATI 550 tuner is a ****** ton better than my old Leadtek card for analog cable.

Edit: I see you don't have Windows MCE. You might want to look at some of the BeyondTV bundles, because in my experience a lot of the software most cards come with sucks.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: 50cent1228
another thing i don't want to be spending extra money buying sage tv or beyond tv

The software for TV is more than half the equation. Don't get cheap on that issue.
The greatest hardware made will seem like crap with a buggy program... :laugh:

 

[cbuchach]

I am VERY happy with my the ATI 550 card using the Windows Media Center software. The quality is much improved over the prior TV Wonder and TV Wonder Pro cards I have owned.

As far as the software, if you are not using Windows Media Center, the included Catalyst Media Cetner software is usable, but the aftermarket options liek Beyond TV or SageTV are more complete and configurable options.

 

[cbuchach]

Oh, and the 650 card will have similar analog TV quality to the 550 but adds an over the air HDTV tuner.

 

[Kilrsat]

Since you're trying to make it work with your dish receiver:

The PVR-150 (not a PVR-150MCE) gets a bonus point because it includes an IR Blaster. This will allow the PC to change channels on the dish receiver.

If you happen to have a Windows MCE remote, then you already have an IR Blaster. At this point, I would recommend either of the ATi cards (650 or 550), an nVidia DualTV, and then the huge glob of all the Hauppauge cards.

Another options for changing channels on the dish receiver would be a USB-UIRT.

Or you could just not care about changing channels and then not have to worry about it. The suggestions will change slightly if you're looking for pci express tuners instead of pci. One more thing to note, since you're connecting to a dish receiver is that if you aren't using the coax input but are using the s-video or composite input, then the differences between the cards shrink.

An ATi Theater 550 can be found for ~$60 and is an incredible deal at that price.

 

[Icepick]

Sorry for the thread hijack.

Can the ATI Theater 550 be used to import VCR tapes into the PC?

 

[Modular]

As far as the 150 goes, I'm pretty impressed with mine.

As far as software goes, don't pay for anything: http://www.gbpvr.com/

Enjoy.

 

[WraithETC]

If you wait every couple of months Frys has a deal where you get beyond tv for free after rebate.

 

[cbuchach]

Originally posted by: Icepick
Sorry for the thread hijack.

Can the ATI Theater 550 be used to import VCR tapes into the PC?

Yes I have used it to record old VHS home movies. The quality of the recording was high and its hardware requirement are low as it has a hardware MPEG-2 encoder.