TV Card recommendations

Tallymanjohn

I'm looking for advice on a decent TV card for my desktop PC. It needs to be an internal card rather than a USB one (don't want it easily removeable), and the easier it is to use, the better. We have a Hauppage one on a media centre but that uses Windows Media Centre, however my desktop only has XP so needs to use the card's own software. Hauppage seem to dominate the market, but I've read bad reports of the software provided. I'm looking to spend up to £70, the card doesn't need to be dual channel, and digital-only is fine. Any recommendations please

Wombat

I've been using the Hauppauge for years (terrestrial channels only) with no problems and excellent results. Model I have is:

Model 61334 Rev. B
Serial #3048249
Tuner Formats: PAL (B/G)
Tuner Audio: Stereo (MSP3415)
Video Formats: NTSC ( M ) PAL ( B G H I D K M N NCOMBO ) SECAM ( L L' )
Audio Outputs: BackPanel
External Inputs: 2
S-Video Inputs: 1
Teletext: Yes (Software)
Radio: FM
Decoder: BT878
Tuner Model: Philips FM1216

Tallymanjohn

Thanks for reply. Bit too much info, but I take it that it won't receive digital channels and so probably isn't a current model I can get? What's the software that comes with it? Does it have a remote control &, if so, how does the system 'see' the remote (is there an infra-red attachment of some sort?)

Wombat

Yes, the model I have is an old one which only receives terrestrial non-digital channels. The latest models, however, receive both analogue and digital signals (with a suitable aerial):

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hvr2200mc.html

Mine came with the WinTV software which allows you to display the TV picture onscreen in any size/ratio you wish, record programs to your hard drive, take still images from the screen and display Teletext (although I've never used this as it's only connected to an indoor aerial and the signal strength isn't sufficient to get the signal).

The "remote" on this one is a software one displayed on the screen, not an infrared one, although I believe these are available and use infrared to communicate with a receiver plugged into the PCI card.

I've never found the software to be a problem. If you can tune a TV, you can tune this. Everything else is done via buttons on the console onscreen, similar to a remote control.

Tallymanjohn

Thanks for that, I think the model linked to is the one I've got in our media centre as it uses Windows Media Centre's remote (which I do rather like) rather than WinTV or whatever and it was the software bit that was the greatest concern as a quick Google seemed to imply this was the main complaint with Hauppage. If anyone's using an up-to-date digital card/remote then would love to hear their opinions.