Posted: 2/12/2010 10:35:24 AM EDT
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I am considering building a Media center PC for my living room..
Some basic must haves are HDPVR one channel while watching streaming content. I have looked at the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual TV Tuner and figure this is the right card but how much processing power will I need to run it without issues? Memory is another question running media center 7, should I go higher than 6 gig? |
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I do.
Running an AMD Dual-core 2.8GHZ processor with 4GB of RAM, both of which is overkill, I understand. I am using the HVR-2250 and I am very happy with it. I'm running Win 7 and do everything through Media Center. 4GB runs this rig just fine. The one annoyance I have at this time is that Media Center will ask to change channels before starting a recording on another station, even if both tuners are not in use. It will also switch the channel if you agree or cancel the recording if you do not and will change the channel if you continue with the recording. You can hit 'OK' to switch back, but it IS quite annoying. I'm hoping for a patch or update to fix that bug. Other than that, I'm VERY pleased with the PC and just added another TB drive to serve as primary movie storage. |
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http://www.windows7htpc.com/ and http://thegreenbutton.com/default.aspx You are welcome. |
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Not sure what cable/satellite company you use but I think the 2250 will only work with unencrypted channels. We have comcast and only a few of the local channels are unencrypted HD. Also around here Comcast is switching over to SDV (switched digital video) to allow more channels at the expense of only transmitting 10-15 unencrypted essentially making most current media pc tuners worthless unless you go to the hassle of configuring your PC to control the cabl company's set top box via an infrared transmitter gizmo. 6GB is more than enough memory, I only have 4GB and that is more than enough for my dual tuner setup outputting 1080p via HDMI. A cool product I am looking forward to is the Ceton MOCUR tuner that gets all the comcast HD channels via a cablecard and has 4 tuners so you can record and/or watch 4 HD channels simultaneously. It should be out at the end of next month for $400. |
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The Hauppauge 2250 is an awesome dual hybrid tuner. It will tune analog cable, digital unencrypted cable (Clear QAM) or over-the-air ATSC digital. It has four tuners total (2 analog and 2 digital (atsc/clear QAM)
In reality, that means that you will be able to receive all analog cable channels and any digital cable channels that are unencrypted. usually that means the local channels in HD and maybe music channels. You can record up to two programs at once in any combination of the 2 digital and 2 analog tuners. It will not decode "optional" paid or extended digital cable channels, because the cable companies 95% of the time encrypt them. The only way to view them is with a decrypter, which is either a cable box of a special type of tuner called a cabe card tuner (the Ceton tuner alluded to in the above post). A good way to see what you will get with the 2250 (what is not encrypted) is just plug your cable coax into the coax input of your digital tv. Whatever channels you can manually tune from your digital tv, the 2250 can recieve and record. I kind of lucked out because my cable provider still has lots of analog channels. I pay 34.95 for extended basic and I get 75 analog channels, roughly 25 digital HD locals and other conent and about 50 music channels that I can record with my 2250's (i run two). |