pvr cards, a bit of advice please

[Dj3stripes]

hello.

WinTV PVR 150MCE
250MCE
350MCE
500MCE



obviously the 500 has dual tuners but what is the other differances between these cards? i'm so confused. I'm going to go with Media Center because i hate trying to tweak the capture settings, and i figured these cards would be the best choices........ the 150 i can find for under 100 dollars the 250 i've found for around 140 dollars and the 350/500 for around 200...........

any help would be appreciated. i can't keep up with the lingo and tediousness of setting every little detail on the capture. i just want something as tivo-like as possible.............

thanks

[yoda313]

Hello,

I have the 250 regular edition for the pc. I don't know what the differences are for the media edition but the 250 is excellent. The 350 for the pc had the fm tuner and on board decoder that the 250 doesn't.

The 250 works very well for mpeg only capturing. No problems whatsoever.

Sorry I don't have media center experience but I give the 250 two thumbs way up for the pci full pc version

Kevin

[AlecWest]

hello.

WinTV PVR 150MCE
250MCE
350MCE
500MCE

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!!

The first thing I did was click on your computer details to see what OS you had ... and your details say "Windows ME." Regardless of what you may have seen on sites selling the hardware, Hauppauge has abandoned support for Windows 98/ME. When I bought my PVR150, even the box it came in suggested otherwise ... but when I opened the box, it only had XP software inside. So, I called up Hauppauge ... and they gave me the bad news.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but, unless you upgrade to XP, you might find yourself dead in the water ... unless you're lucky enough to buy an "older" version (which did work on 98/ME) with the appropriate software in the box.

If you're buying from a local store, ask a clerk to "open the box" first to see if they include software for ME ... even if the box says it's ME compatible.

P.S. I run a dual-boot system, XP on one partition, 98SE on another, and was hoping to install the software on both partitions. The XP partition was enough ... but, when I bought it, the seller's site indicated compatability with 98SE/ME/XP. And, it just wasn't so.

P.P.S. BTW, even if you had XP, I don't think your system could handle any of the Hauppauge cards:

[Dj3stripes]

hahaha, oh man, i totally forgot to update those specs.........that was on an old machine that i had as a spare running as a divx box for my tv, thanks for the reminder.

i went ahead and placed an order for the 150mce. I'm getting a copy of media center 05 to try it out on, unless there's a guide on how to setup every aspect of like, some free software, like media portal.............

[AlecWest]

hahaha, oh man, i totally forgot to update those specs.........that was on an old machine that i had as a spare running as a divx box for my tv, thanks for the reminder.

i went ahead and placed an order for the 150mce. I'm getting a copy of media center 05 to try it out on, unless there's a guide on how to setup every aspect of like, some free software, like media portal.............

Yes:

... a definite improvement (grin). BTW, my PVR150 performs like a champ.