TV & HTPC Advice...

[AlphexHunter]

Hey guy's,

I was thinking of buying a new TV-Tuner on my Gaming pc since I just got my new VX2025 and its so big !.... I heard good things about the Hauppauge PVR-500
Dual Tuner that I can record 2 things blablabla... its nice. But my main things that I will be doing with this tv-tuner is:
(Can sommeon double chek and let me know if all these will be possible with this Tuner?)

-Watching cable tv ofcors
-hooking up consoles Gamecube, Xbox360, PS3, PS2 ...(you name it)
-hooking up VHS machine (recording them then burning it on DVD)
-Recording my favorite shows (already know it can do this but just checking)

And another question, I have Windows XP home and soon to get Vista.. Is that gonna be a probleme with the controler I dunno I just dont want any troubles.. And will this tv-tuner look good with my widescreen VX2025 1650x1050? like will it go full screen or there will be blackbars ? And does it come with the bundle sagatv and beyondtv ?

-Also I will be kinda using my monitor like a TV monitor so do I HAVE to have my computer on to watch tv or can I just press power on the controller and voila?

Thanks you!

 

[AlphexHunter]

bump no help

 

[AlphexHunter]

lolz..not iven one reply ... does anybody own this TV-Tuner ?

 

[JBark]

The PVR-500 is basically 2 PVR-150s on a single card. Everyone seems to like the 150s, so the 500 should be fine. For not much more, you could get the nVidia DualTV, which seems to get excellent reviews:
http://store.nvidia.com/product.aspx?sku=2768081

But they both should work fine, though the picture quality from the DualTV is probably going to be better than the PVR-500. The newer DualTV (and the ATI Theater550) can clean up the picture better than some of the older cards can. So if you've got pretty crappy cable service (like me), then I'd lean towards one of the newer tuner cards.

From what I can tell, you won't be able to hook up your console(s) to your tuner card. They do realtime MPEG encoding, and it's usually delayed by a second or two. Pretty tough to game with a 2 second delay. Your best bet would be to use a switchbox for your video, though you should still be able to run your audio through your PC if you need to.

 

[AlphexHunter]

Ok so if I understood correctly the Hauppauge PVR-500 will not play any consoles
so I have to get a vga box ( got any good ones in mind ? )

And It will work on Windows XP Home all good and no problemes.. ( because I read in the
newegg comments that this will give you alot of problemes if you dont have Windows MCE...
Am a little bit worried...


-And my question that if my pc is not open will I still be able to watch tv from my monitor ?

-And another question that has been on my mind will I be able to like watch tv in the coner of my monitor and play l'ets say Battlelfield 2 ?

 

[CrimandEvil]

-Watching cable tv ofcors

That sort of depends on what you want to do with it, you won't be able to connect it to your digital cable and get all those HD channels and such. But yes, if you have regular cable then it should be fine.

-hooking up consoles Gamecube, Xbox360, PS3, PS2 ...(you name it)

Don't. Thats a terrible idea once you realize how these tuner cards work (not to mention all of the quality lost). You'll want to get this instead: http://www.x2vga.com/

-hooking up VHS machine (recording them then burning it on DVD)

Much like the game console idea this one might not be as good either. If you're thinking of connecting that old VHS deck to it and recording your copy of Star Wars (for example) then it won't really work since it's going to have Macrovision protection on it. Home movies and the like will work fine.

And another question, I have Windows XP home and soon to get Vista.. Is that gonna be a probleme with the controler I dunno I just dont want any troubles.

I don't know, you mean "remote" right? That all depends on what remote you're looking to use. I would suggest the MCE remote but since you're using Home you'll need to get the drivers for it (I have them somewhere on my HDD if you need a copy).

And will this tv-tuner look good with my widescreen VX2025 1650x1050?

Maybe, if thats an HD set then you should know that HD sets tend to show just how much garbage SD is. I would go with a different tuner myself, the NV DualTV tuner, considering how outdated the PVR500 is.

like will it go full screen or there will be blackbars?

Depends on if you're TV is widescreen or not.

And does it come with the bundle sagatv and beyondtv?

Doesn't really matter, even the bundled version of BTV (BTV SE) is garbage like most bundled apps.

-Also I will be kinda using my monitor like a TV monitor so do I HAVE to have my computer on to watch tv or can I just press power on the controller and voila?

Are you using it with a TV tuner? Which is connected inside of the PC? If so then of course you need the PC on for you to watch TV.

 

[CrimandEvil]

-And another question that has been on my mind will I be able to like watch tv in the coner of my monitor and play l'ets say Battlelfield 2 ?

No, especially if you are playing something as hardware intensive as BF2.

What you will be able to do is record TV in the background while you game, regardless, trying to watch TV and game is pretty ADD.

 

[AlphexHunter]

Wow Thank you for answering all my questions!

But for the NV DualTV tuner is there any other tv tuner that are pretty good out there ? ( for all the requirements am I will be using my tuner for..).. I heard that the Ati theather 650 something like that are pretty good too ?


X2VGA looks amazing and the price is very nice too for it. If I do purchase this then I dont have to get the VGA cable right ?

Thanks

 

[CrimandEvil]

Wow Thank you for answering all my questions!

But for the NV DualTV tuner is there any other tv tuner that are pretty good out there ? ( for all the requirements am I will be using my tuner for..).. I heard that the Ati theather 650 something like that are pretty good too ?

You asked about dual tuners and currently there are only two tuners out there and none of them are using ATI's chips.

X2VGA looks amazing and the price is very nice too for it. If I do purchase this then I dont have to get the VGA cable right ?

You input component into the X2VGA.