HTPC Questions

[waterhead]

I just saw this link on Vista and a new ATI OCUR card:

Cable HDTV and Vista

[kevbeck122]

That's pretty cool, though I don't know if I'll have enough money when Vista comes out to build a new system.  I also don't plan on having cable after college unless there's some major boost in HD channels on TWC and more choices as far as channel packages go.

Thanks for the store suggestions.. it's about $10 cheaper at mwave, plus I can buy the tuner cards to meet the requirement.

[Doug Mohr]

Where's the best place to buy MCE?

http://www.directdeals.com/category-windows-xp-media-center.aspx

Today, they only have a 3-pack, but check back and you'll see some great deals come through.

[kevbeck122]

I decided to try it on my spare 2GHz machine.... works fine on the extender, so I won't have to buy a 2.66 in the summer.  It's a bit slow sometimes especially if I go in the online showcase thing.. but I can live with that.  As long as I get a good non jittery picture for TV, I'm fine with that.  I like MCE a lot better than TWC's DVR.. plus it seems more reliable.

[waterhead]

I decided to follow my own advice. I'm completely redoing my Windows PVR. I was trying to run Beyond TV4 on WinXP, but the HD video was jerky. Following advice on their forum, I went to Mwave and bought the following:

ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum video card (AGP)
2 Seagate 300GB Serial ATA hard drives
Windows Media Center Edition 2005

I was using a "borrowed" copy of media center, and Microsoft recently tightened their update page. It checks if your windows version is legit or not. I test drove it enough to know that I wanted my own copy.

Also, I found out that I can run Beyond TV4 on WMCE. I have to disable WMCE's access to the capture cards first. I didn't like the program guide in WMCE, BTV4 is much better. But WMCE gave me a good HDTV picture. Either way, I think that I have it covered.

I know, the money I spent on this would be a good down payment on a decent HD monitor. I need to record shows first, the plasma screen I want will have to wait.