Counter Terrorist Zombie
New member
Can someone recommend a decent digital tv card that's compatible with Windows media center?
ta!
ta!
Windows MC TV Cards?
- Thread starter Counter Terrorist Zombie
- Start date
specialtech
New member
Personally for me it has to be the avermedia cards such as the volar, a800 or the hybrid. Why? Simplicity.. They just work. Simply straight out of the box. No installing diff sets of drivers and such.
They are a bit more expensive that some of the other ones that "LOOK" similar but arent. They honestly (and i can personally vouch for this) use the best tuners on the market and the best chipsets available for DVB-T decoding. They also dont get stupidly hot like some other models like Kworld as well.
The software supplied, albeit useless if you are using MCE, is the best of the bunch if only for the fact it doesnt use comic sans. Also their techsupport is uk based and good bunch of lads a swell
They are a bit more expensive that some of the other ones that "LOOK" similar but arent. They honestly (and i can personally vouch for this) use the best tuners on the market and the best chipsets available for DVB-T decoding. They also dont get stupidly hot like some other models like Kworld as well.
The software supplied, albeit useless if you are using MCE, is the best of the bunch if only for the fact it doesnt use comic sans. Also their techsupport is uk based and good bunch of lads a swell
nebuala digitv cards are probs the best. http://www.nebula-electronics.com/
Useful site for tv cards > http://www.tv-cards.com
hope this helps!
Useful site for tv cards > http://www.tv-cards.com
hope this helps!
shiftlocked
New member
The nebula cards are a good set of cards that haveloads of features to use if you dont want to use them within MCE. To use some of their cards within MCE you have to download the BDA drivers which then renders the stuff in the software useless so you pay for things you cant use.
That being said their network streaming stuff does work really well, apart from the multicasting. The tools that are in the software are suited for the geeks amongst us and they do have a nice tuner in them.
Horses for courses, if you want a card with loads of features outside of mce then nebula are a good choice. For mce my personal fave is the Avermedia Volar at the mo
That being said their network streaming stuff does work really well, apart from the multicasting. The tools that are in the software are suited for the geeks amongst us and they do have a nice tuner in them.
Horses for courses, if you want a card with loads of features outside of mce then nebula are a good choice. For mce my personal fave is the Avermedia Volar at the mo
Compro videomate Cheap and great quality for the price. I have one 
I loved my Compro when I had it, and it seems that you can't even buy Compro products in the states anymore, kinda sucks. Newegg completely stopped carrying them I know.noveltylamp
New member
Compro make digital cards in the UK, they're on Scan Todayonly too.
im thinking of buying a tv card, but i dont plan to make a seperate htpc box, so am looking for soemthing which has relatively decent software i can use, or one that is compatible with some half decent software.
is mediaportal any good for just opening and watching, or is it more designed for htpc's?
is mediaportal any good for just opening and watching, or is it more designed for htpc's?
shiftlocked
New member
From what I remember using media portal, it was slow....very VERY very slow. but that could have just been me missing somethig on the setup of it. The interface was clean if somewhat simplistic but it kinda worked.
I never got past watching a few seconds of tv as it rammed the cpu up to 100% and then some more which rendered the app useless.
Support was ok and what you can expect form a support based forum, replies did come to help me out which was ok but not brilliant.
The main thing is to make sure that you have a compatible card and read the forums first. Im sure that its a great app when its setup proper but for me... didnt work at all... but dont let that put you off, give her a whirl
I never got past watching a few seconds of tv as it rammed the cpu up to 100% and then some more which rendered the app useless.
Support was ok and what you can expect form a support based forum, replies did come to help me out which was ok but not brilliant.
The main thing is to make sure that you have a compatible card and read the forums first. Im sure that its a great app when its setup proper but for me... didnt work at all... but dont let that put you off, give her a whirl
