I am looking for advice on purchasing a TV PCI tuner card. I’m interested in a card that pauses live TV and has a VCR with a scheduler for those times when you know you won’t be around to record a show. I’ve looked at the ATI HDTV Wonder PCI TV Tuner but not sure if I really need the HDTV capability. Another choice was the Pinnacle PCTV MediaCenter (thw- March 4, 2005) but found other mixed reviews on the item. I’m sure my system will handle any additional processor stress the software may throw at it. Thanks.


OS: XP pro sp2
Case: Lian Li PC-65 Aluminum ATX
Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
Processor: Intel Pentium 4HT 3.0GHz (overclock: 3.6GHz)
Chipset: Intel Canterwood i875P
FBS: 800MHz
System memory: 2GB Dual DDR
Video Adapter: ASUS Radeon A9600XT (128MB)
Montior: Viewsonic VX924 19in LCD Monitor
Disk Drive: ASUS dvd-rw, Liteon dvd rom
HD: WDC 200GB x4
Driver: Promise 2X2 Mirror/Raid1 (0+1)

Check out the <A HREF="http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_pvrs.html" target="_new"> Hauppauge PVR TV cards</A>

The Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

As was said, most of the Hauppauge TV cards are quite good. Hauppauge has been doing TV tuners for a long time, and I think they've got it worked out great.
As for high def TV, that's not a bad way to go either. Avermedia, like Hauppauge, has been doing this stuff for a long time. They just announced that it has new drivers for its AverTVHD MCE A180 HD tuner which will permit this card to work in a plain Windows XP box. In other words, the A180 is no longer solely a Windows MCE part.
Also, the new drivers for the A180 allows two A180s to work in WMCE (dual tuner support).

For you, the ATI TV Wonder Elite would be...elite. But you can pick up identical Theater 550 cards from Saphire and Powercolor for less money, I've seen them as low as $70.

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I just bought the Hauppauge 150 pvr on sale for $80.00 from circuit city. I've had it for about a week and am VERY impressed with its abilities. It's my first pvr card, but I can't imagine a better value. I'd say compare the Hauppauge 150, 250 and 350 for features and pick one of those; you can't go wrong.


http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/oi [...] ew.do#tabs