[mythtv-users] Good tuner card?

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Thu Nov 3 17:05:43 EST 2005


C. R. Oldham wrote:

>Michael T. Dean [mtdean at thirdcontact.com] wrote: 
>
>>And, IMHO, if it's the 350 you want, you don't really want 
>>the 350, but you just don't know it yet.  (I have a 350 that 
>>I'm using as if it were a 250 or a 150.)
>>
>Wow, thanks for all the quick feedback.  I'm leaning toward 2 150's then,
>that's cheaper than 1 500.  The machine will have an Athlon64 3500+ in it,
>so decoding will never be an issue.
>
>I'm seeing the PVR-150 advertised as the PVR-150 MCE, for Windows Media
>Center--that's not a different card from the PVR-150, is it?
>  
>
The MCE version is cheaper because it doesn't include the remote 
control.  You can buy an "MCE Kit" which includes the card and the 
remote (and is certified by his royal Bill-ness to be acceptable for an 
MCE) or you can buy the 150 "retail" version, which comes with a remote 
(but doesn't have Bill's stamp of approval--not a problem since you're 
not running MCE).  The 150 retail is probably cheaper than the MCE kit 
if you need the remote, though.

If buying two 150's for use in the same combined frontend/backend, you 
definitely want at least one of them to be an MCE (because you'll only 
need one remote).  If you have a different plan for a remote (i.e. 
homebrew or ATI/X10/MCE USB remote or ...), buy two 150-MCE's.  If you 
are creating two combined frontend/backend machines and want two 
remotes, you can get two retail 150's or 2 MCE kits.

Mike


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