Im sorry if I sound clueless, I have spent a few hours the other day on google and a bit today but I cant seem to get my head around all the types of TV Cards available.

Im after a TV card to allow me to watch tv on my pc, but mainly to set it to record programs that start when I am out. Sort of like sky+

I have seen 2 Hauppauge cards but cant tell the difference between the Noca-T and the PVR150????
I would prefer a card that doesnt put too much of a strain on my pc.

Can someone please help?

Thanks

xx

What kind of tv are you wanting to watch on this? Terrestrial, freeview, cable or satellite?

Hi steev,
I want to watch freeview which I know both cards support. Its just im unsure over the recording features of both. I have tried to read up on it all but there are so many acroynms I got confused :(

xx

In that case it depends on whether you just want a USB stick which you plug in to your PC, or whether you'd like a proper tuner card. If you can fit an internal card or have a geek to hand then I've just ordered one of these (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16061054777&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=94512) & can't fault it, if you'd like an external one then this (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16061054777&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=52165) is a good one...

Both will give you the ability to pause live TV, & record to your PC. There may be cheaper options, but Hauppauge (how do you pronounce Hauppauge?) are good, & the software's definitely better than the (non Hauppauge) one I had before.

(how do you pronounce Hauppauge?)

Hop Hog

The bundled software with most TV cards is adequate but you're much better off buying Showshifter.

Freeview card, try these, very good software as well:

http://www.nebula-electronics.com/products/prodmain.asp

Thanks for helping me guys.
I need to save pennies at the moment so I wanted to spend as little as possible. Do any of you know anything about this card?

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=27669

Fitting it is not a problem, my friends boyf is going to fit it for me :)

From what I can tell I can use third party programs to use it as a sky+ type recorder, is this true??

Im sorry for being a pain guys, I really appreciate your help

xx

There seems to be a big thing about a 150 model. Im so confused by it al :(

That would seem to be exactly the same as the one I've just bought except it's about £8 cheaper, d'oh! :hihi:

It seems the one I mentioned above uses the pc processer to work. Does your pc run ok with your card? I only have a 2500 CPU so I am worried about how well it will run.

xx

Ah it'll run fine as long as you don't have loads of stuff running in the background, mine's a 3000+ & still glitches momentarily when (for example) my anti-virus update kicks in.

Looks like there is a slight difference, the one you pointed to is digital freeview & digital radio, the one I have is digital & analogue TV, as well as digital radio & FM radio. I feel better spending the extra £8 now...

Do you know of any that will encode on the chip not the cpu?

hehe check me out using the jargon :D

xx

None of the cheap ones will do hardware encoding unfortunately. There is one (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16074074536&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=98787) on ebuyer for around £100 with 2 tuners that do hardware encoding (so you can record one channel & watch another too) if you want to spend that much...

One thing to make sure of, is that you choose a card with BDA drivers. This will ensure that you can run it with a wide range of PVR software (showshifter, gbpvr, mediaportal, WebScheduler etc.)

I tried one of those Freecom DVB-T usb sticks, but found that it pushed my idle CPU temp up by about 7 or 8 degrees (I overclock so idle temp. is important to me :thumbsup: ).
It also doesn't come with BDA drivers, though you can use alternative drivers (Yakumo) that are BDA.

I'm now running a generic PCI DVB-T card with showshifter and gbpvr - It's great!

Do you know of any that will encode on the chip not the cpu?
There is no encoding involved with Freeview/DVB-T cards as the transmission is already encoded in MPEG2.

I have a machine with 2 DVB-T cards in, and it uses less than 5% CPU when both are recording at the same time.

I have seen 2 Hauppauge cards but cant tell the difference between the Noca-T and the PVR150????


The Nova-T is a freeview card, and the PVR150 is an analogue TV card that encodes into MPEG2.

Thank you for your help boys, I think I will go for the Nova-T

xx