Advice please on recording 3-4 channels using XP MCE

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methom90wh

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 22029 14-May-2008 08:44

Hi,

I've been running XP MCE with a PVR150 card for a while now and it's been woking great.

What I'd like to do is be able to record more channels (up to 3, maybe 4) at the same time but I'm not sure what the best way to do this is.

The PC is a dual-core with 2Gb ram and 3Tb of disk space. I use an xbox 360 as a media center extender so I don't actually watch the tv on the PC itself, I mainly use the PC for general office/internet stuff. It's not a gaming rig so currently I'm running video output off the M/B (dont laugh, it's been fine so far).

I'm open to recording off analogue or maybe using freeview.

If this has been asked a million times before feel free to point me to a link and flame me for being too lazy to search in the first place ;)

TIA
Matt.

mruane

420 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 130799 14-May-2008 09:40

The PVR500 Analog tuner has dual tuners allowing you to record two things at once. However the best option, if you have a satellite dish (i.e. a Sky dish for instance), is to install either two DVB-S cards or one dual tuner DVB-S card and Media Portal rather than trying to do this with MCE.

Media Portal will record ALL channels present on the same transponder with just a single tuner. So with two DVB-S cards and Media Portal, you could record everything on Freeview (i.e. all channels ) at the same time because Freeview Satellite only use two transponders for all of its services. I have recorded three prograns at the same time before today without any issues.

Search through some of the threads for more information. There's a heap of advice available and the Media Portal forum (see www.team-mediaportal.com) has a very long NZ thread that will help.

Cheers Mike

methom90wh

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 130804 14-May-2008 10:05

Thanks for your reply Mike.

I was about to say that "I want to keep MCE so I can use the 360 as an extender" but I read that media portal has a plugin that looks like it will work. Sweet.

I'll download it and try it over the weekend (who am I kidding, I'll probably have it running tonight). If I can use the existing PVR150 for Prime and the dual-tuner card for freeview then I'll be set.

This _may_ be a stupid question but will the tuner card decode freeview for me or do I still need a STB ?

Thanks again for your help.

CYaBro

3169 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

# 130805 14-May-2008 10:07

The problem with Mediaportal is that the Xbox360 won't work with it.

The Hauppauge PVR500 is a dual PVR150 on one card so can record/watch two channels.
Since you already have a PVR150 you could just add another PVR150.
Not sure if XP MCE can support more than two tuners but could be wrong.

methom90wh

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 130807 14-May-2008 10:22

CYaBro: The problem with Mediaportal is that the Xbox360 won't work with it.

I had a deeper look and it appears a plugin will allow you to use Mediaportal as a replacement for the TV section of MCE.

I'm pretty sure MCE allows you to use 2 PVR150's. This would nearly be OK.

Not sure though if MCE would record 3 channels if I used the existing card + a dual tuner card.

Thanks,
Matt.

mruane

420 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 130906 14-May-2008 16:19

methom90wh:

You will not need an STB to receive Freeview Satellite. Freeview is not encoded like say Sky is. The STB simply converts the satellite frequency to something you can receive and extracts the MPEG2 from the transport stream so you can view it. A DVB-S PCI card will do exactly the same thing.

Cheers Mike