Right Ive googled till im google in the face and tried to find out exactly what I want but I cant, so im here asking gurus to help. Simple put I have a a rig as per my sig (soon to be upgraded further) with Media Centre 2005 on it and in the next room I have my Set Top Box giving me Telewest goodness on my television. Now after seeing loads of screenshots of how awesome TV is when integrated properly into MCE I want it! Basically what hardware (TV Cards)/dodgy messing about/apps? Do I need so that I can have telewest fully integrated into MCE? Oh and Id love to have FM maybe even digital radio in the mix too Deano.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/partners/dfw/partnerlisting.mspx ,also get a mce remote with irblaster these can be had for £25 from ebuyer etc. For a tv card if it were my money a hauppauge pvr150mce (£50 from scan)would be my first choice.
Got a MCE 2005 remote allready. Nice bit of kit and indeed that is the card I was looking at. Now all i need to know is how to rig it all up. And i am bemused, id like the listings etc integrated into the MCE package. And that I cant do by having a SVID or COMP feed into the TV card can I? Deano.
I don't use MCE2005 but I believe the listings are downloaded over the net, The cable set top box's output (scart or s-vid etc whatever your box has)will be connected to the input (svid or composite) of the tv card. To output to a tv your graphics card will need to have a tv out. visit http://www.thegreenbutton.com for FAQs there
So, technically can you just buy any ordinary graphics card with VIVO and then use VI to input the TV signal from your set top box? The only advantage of the H150 PVR is that it does onboard mpeg2 encoding.
The issue is that VIVO cards are not supported in MCE for capturing. You can used the supplied software with the card for capture but not the tv app in MCE. Also the pvr150 will more than likely have much better capture picture quality. Save yourself the hassle and time and buy the pvr150 over say an AIW card. I have gone down the software encoder card route and learnt that hardware cards are the best bet, unless you want to play console games on your monitor.
ahh rite listings are over the net ok. that i now understand. one thing i dont, i have my tv signal coming into my tv card etc fine. but how does mce control the channel changing in that case ie for unattended recordings and general channnel surfing? Deano.
