Looking for a HD Tuner card. Any recomendations !!!!

[Paul Mathews]

Ive got my HD Tv hooked up to my PC and am able to play HD trailers and movies on it 720p and 1080i ones. But i would like to be able to record as well in HD and SD as well.

Iam at work when most of the stuff i woant to watch is on so i would like it if i could record stuff when iam out.

I was thinking of getting Microsft MCE. But My mdei pc is my main PC at the momment and i don't want to buy another OS. Well unless i get a Sperate Media PC and even then from what i have read MCE aint worth it for HD as it does not support it and ive heard other bad things about it.

I think i would like to use the software the card has as i would not need to change my OS which is allways a good thing.

Also iam wording about the remote controls. I would like the card to have a great remote control that i could do everything i wanted. Play Videos sound swtich them close them ect. Fast forawrd rewind ect all that it should do. Though i would think that was a given for a media centre Remote. Anyway ive got a Wireless Mouse and keyboar diam going to use for those things you need them for

Iam new to this and have No idea what card i would need. i know it must be able to reciieve HD and be able to record the HD. It would be great if it could encode the video on the fly but from what i have read this is not the best option as the results are not to great. i think maybe recorded it in a somewhat comrpress way then encoded it afterwards, If needed for storage.

Iam thinking of getting a 250 gig SATA drive to do all my video captures to would that be big enough. Ive seem some estimates for high quality video at 3 gigs an hour. Which seems fine if you have a 250 gig drive. And if you wanted to keep it you could compress it via WMV HD or Divx 6 HD. Not sure how long that would take but i would hope the card had a hardware encoder that i could use


Thanks for any help. This card is not a priority. But would be somthing fun to have and as i have no pluge dmy VCR back in as yet. Just got my NEW HD tv a week ago.

Thanks for any help and for answering my Questions.

/Forgive the spelling or any other mistakes typing this on my lap on my lounge whre my monitor is for testing purposes with my TV :0

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

I think i would like to use the software the card has as i would not need to change my OS which is allways a good thing.

A good option, if that's what you want to do - it'll work fine

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

Also iam wording about the remote controls. I would like the card to have a great remote control that i could do everything i wanted. Play Videos sound swtich them close them ect. Fast forawrd rewind ect all that it should do.

Easy, if you go the MCE way, get the MS remote - it works!

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

I am new to this and have No idea what card i would need. i know it must be able to reciieve HD and be able to record the HD.

See this poll - if you MUST have HD right now, MCE won't do it - it'll handle SD video with audio but not AC3 with HD - it'll come, but it's not doable now. For a little more info, cherck the sigs pof the guys here and find a tuner that keeps appearing and you'll be sure it works an that future questions will be answered with authority.

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

It would be great if it could encode the video on the fly but from what i have read this is not the best option as the results are not to great. i think maybe recorded it in a somewhat comrpress way then encoded it afterwards, If needed for storage.

No recoding/compression on the fly - you'd need a 3rd party utility like Crunchie for that.

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

Iam thinking of getting a 250 gig SATA drive to do all my video captures to would that be big enough.

Yes! - 2 would be a lot better - check out the threads here on HDD configurations.

Originally Posted by Paul Mathews

But My mdei pc is my main PC at the momment and i don't want to buy another OS. Well unless i get a Sperate Media PC and even then from what i have read MCE aint worth it for HD as it does not support it and ive heard other bad things about it.

Paul, it would seem that you still haven't made a decision about exactly what your needs going forward will be, also, it's probably not a great idea to share your MCE rig with your other PC neeeds, it can be done but you're going to finish up with a less than satisfactory experience given you'll be installing and uninstalling software, tweaking and fiddling and trying to work whilst someone else wants to use it as a media center. We can help you with just about any aspect of MCE but what we can't do is help you decide if you should go with it as your main OS, as a seperate PC or even at all. That decision will be the result of your personal circumstances and short to medium term needs - see this post for more on that.

I would suggest that once your decision is made, bring it all down to a few bullet point questions and we'll get you over the line.

Mike

[Paul Mathews]

No recoding/compression on the fly - you'd need a 3rd party utility like Crunchie for that.

I have heard Crunchie is good can that encode HD files to 720p and 1080i and does it use the encoder chips on the 6600gt or tuner card. Would want the conversion to be fast as possible.

Right after the program is finished it can be programed to convert the file and leave the original in tact just incase the conversion was not that great so i have to do it over.

Any mor einfo about crunhie would be great. Would love to convert me some WMV HD and Divx 6 HD files.

Thanks.