Hi,

I am helping my Dad with his Media Center PC. He's already got his system
built, including a video card with a DVI out to go into his plasma. The
thing he is lacking is a TV tuner card. I was thinking of recommending this
one to him:
http://hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

Currently, he is a Dish Network subscriber WITHOUT the HD receiver. He will
eventually be getting some kind of HDTV service (Comcast, DirecTV or Dish
Network) and I want to make sure that this card will fit his needs. I think
most HD receivers have a coax output, which I could put into this TV tuner
card, but want to make sure. I am a newbie with this stuff, so if I'm
missing something would someone please give me some direction?

Thanks for reading this.

-Monks

That is a great card. It only takes one slot and has the FM Tuner.
Atleast unti ATI releases a dual tuner version of their Theater 550.

The HD service will be useless. MCE only will work with over their Air
broadcasts. Which means an internal HD tuner or USB external tuner.
Which I just posted a few questions in this group about.

http://groups.google.com/group/micro...794f395a63fb7c

eVga makes a great tuner as well. It is a 16mb card that also has a built-in
FM tuner. I currently have two of them in my setup and love avery minute of
it. They have recently released a single card dual tuner solution which would
be a wise choice for a system with limited PCI slots

"PAPutzback" wrote:

> That is a great card. It only takes one slot and has the FM Tuner.
> Atleast unti ATI releases a dual tuner version of their Theater 550.
>
> The HD service will be useless. MCE only will work with over their Air
> broadcasts. Which means an internal HD tuner or USB external tuner.
> Which I just posted a few questions in this group about.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/micro...794f395a63fb7c
>
>

That is a fine dual tuner, but you should realize that it is only dual with
two separate Set Top Boxes (STB). Since it is the cable/Dish STB that is
tuning the signal and passing it to the tuner card, the STB can only send
one channel at a time. Also, that card only has one set of inputs anyway. It
is truely a dual tuner card, if you have plain old analog cable that you can
plug directly into card from the wall; then it splits the signal internally
and gives you two different channels.

BTW, if you want to use the dual tuner feature with an additional STB, you
would also little accessory that goes into one of the other slots on the
back of the PC and gives you the second set of inputs. I don't believe it
comes standard with the 500mce card.

Also, that is not a HD card, so it won't do you any good if he moves on to
HD eventually. MCE needs an HD card if you wish to watch HD and that is only
for over the air stuff; HD coming from cable or Sat will be recorded in
standard since it is connected by the s-video connection.
--
James
Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida


"Monks" <blah@blah.net> wrote in message
news:4395dbf1$0$38655$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> Hi,
>
> I am helping my Dad with his Media Center PC. He's already got his system
> built, including a video card with a DVI out to go into his plasma. The
> thing he is lacking is a TV tuner card. I was thinking of recommending
> this one to him:
> http://hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html
>
> Currently, he is a Dish Network subscriber WITHOUT the HD receiver. He
> will eventually be getting some kind of HDTV service (Comcast, DirecTV or
> Dish Network) and I want to make sure that this card will fit his needs. I
> think most HD receivers have a coax output, which I could put into this TV
> tuner card, but want to make sure. I am a newbie with this stuff, so if
> I'm missing something would someone please give me some direction?
>
> Thanks for reading this.
>
> -Monks
>

"Jaime" <jaimelobo@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23L1vttp%23FHA.2264@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Also, that is not a HD card, so it won't do you any good if he moves on to
> HD eventually. MCE needs an HD card if you wish to watch HD and that is
> only for over the air stuff; HD coming from cable or Sat will be recorded
> in standard since it is connected by the s-video connection.
> --
> James
> Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida
>
>

Thanks for the replies, guys. I don't understand what you mean by "over the
air" stuff, though. It seems like if they don't already make one, they will
make a TV tuner card that has the component inputs built in. It also sounds
like purchasing that card would be a waste of money seeing as how he's
planning on switching to a HD setup.

Does HD not work over a DVI connection? Does it require the component cables
to do the interlaced stuff?

-Monks

I don't use HD, so I'm not 100% sure, but I believe HD works with DVI.

Over the Air means with an antenna, so you get any local HD broadcasts.
Currently you need to put one stand tuner card in along with the HD card,
you can't just run an HD card, you might want to consider a Hauppauge 150mce
card for the initial card.
--
James
Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida

"Monks" <blah@blah.net> wrote in message
news:4396144c$0$38640$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
>
> "Jaime" <jaimelobo@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:%23L1vttp%23FHA.2264@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> Also, that is not a HD card, so it won't do you any good if he moves on
>> to HD eventually. MCE needs an HD card if you wish to watch HD and that
>> is only for over the air stuff; HD coming from cable or Sat will be
>> recorded in standard since it is connected by the s-video connection.
>> --
>> James
>> Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida
>>
>>
>
> Thanks for the replies, guys. I don't understand what you mean by "over
> the air" stuff, though. It seems like if they don't already make one, they
> will make a TV tuner card that has the component inputs built in. It also
> sounds like purchasing that card would be a waste of money seeing as how
> he's planning on switching to a HD setup.
>
> Does HD not work over a DVI connection? Does it require the component
> cables to do the interlaced stuff?
>
> -Monks
>

Decoded HD Video in 720p or 1080i resolution can be tranmitted over
VGA(using 1080p instead of 1080i), component, DVI or HDMI. Due to the high
bandwidth of the decoded video I do not know of any PC cads that can receive
this video. I believe that there is an card for an Apple that costs several
thousand dollars that can receive them over component.

"Jaime" <jaimelobo@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eT2DxHs%23FHA.3308@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>I don't use HD, so I'm not 100% sure, but I believe HD works with DVI.
>
> Over the Air means with an antenna, so you get any local HD broadcasts.
> Currently you need to put one stand tuner card in along with the HD card,
> you can't just run an HD card, you might want to consider a Hauppauge
> 150mce card for the initial card.
> --
> James
> Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida
>
> "Monks" <blah@blah.net> wrote in message
> news:4396144c$0$38640$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
>>
>> "Jaime" <jaimelobo@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:%23L1vttp%23FHA.2264@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>>> Also, that is not a HD card, so it won't do you any good if he moves on
>>> to HD eventually. MCE needs an HD card if you wish to watch HD and that
>>> is only for over the air stuff; HD coming from cable or Sat will be
>>> recorded in standard since it is connected by the s-video connection.
>>> --
>>> James
>>> Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the replies, guys. I don't understand what you mean by "over
>> the air" stuff, though. It seems like if they don't already make one,
>> they will make a TV tuner card that has the component inputs built in. It
>> also sounds like purchasing that card would be a waste of money seeing as
>> how he's planning on switching to a HD setup.
>>
>> Does HD not work over a DVI connection? Does it require the component
>> cables to do the interlaced stuff?
>>
>> -Monks
>>
>
>