Gary, et al,
I installed Vista Ultimate SP1, installed Office 2007, QuickBooks, and a few
other things, did all the service packs, etc, then started reading more
about the TV Pack 2008 and Extenders for Windows Media Center.
I installed a Hauppauge 2250 (#1213, dual ATSC/analog) card with Media
Center kit. All the posts regarding the TV Pack 2008 said to install it
right after doing a complete re-installation of Vista, but I just installed
it in the current setup, right after installing the card and drivers (I
imaged the system prior to install...just in case!). The installation was
flawless, the tuner was recognized as two ATSC digital tuners, and it works
great. Picture clarity is amazing on HD shows and channel numbers are the
same format (2.1, 4.1, 4.2, etc) as on my Channel Master CM-7000 DTV
converter box for the HDTV. It only has 480i output, so I'll probably get an
actual HDTV tuner. Seeing the MASSIVELY BETTER quality of the DTV vs. analog
picture has bitten me hard. I want more!
Gigabit NICs are dirt cheap and I had a spare PCI slot, so I popped one into
the system so that working on the server will still be good.
Now all I have to do is find a media center extender that will play the new
WTV format of the TV Pack 2008 (and Windows 7??) recordings. So many from
which to choose, but none under $200 getting good reviews. I do not want an
Xbox 360 in my living room...too noisy from what I've read.
I thank everyone for their input!
Gregg Hill
"Gary Mount" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:9275CCC4-9697-4753-B272-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Your computer will wake up even from hibernation to record TV, then sleep
> or hibernate again according to how you have set up the sleep function.
> I used a P4 2.6GHz 2GB RAM, one 300GB and one 500 GB to record TV for a
> couple of years until the nearly 6 year old system failed two weeks ago.
> Now I have a i7 system I put together myself.
>
> One problem I have found with my new system is that I can only use 2GB of
> my 6GB of RAM with my two Hauppauge TV tuners, model PVR-150 when using 64
> bit Windows.
>
> A test of my wireless network with an XBOX extender said that my 55 Mbs
> was fast enough for HD video, so 100 Mbs should be plenty for HD video.
>
> "Gregg Hill" <greggmhill at please do not spam me at yahoo dot com> wrote
> in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Originally posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_video,
>> but no response.
>>
>> Hello!
>>
>> I don't have Vista installed yet, but I want to set it up with an
>> internal dual-tuner card, probably this one
>> http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2250.html, and use it as an
>> ATSC DVR for OTA shows.
>>
>> 1) Can a Vista Ultimate computer running Media Center as a DVR be set to
>> automatically wake up from S3 and start recording, then go back to sleep
>> when it is done? I don't want to leave it running all day when on
>> vacation
>> just to record shows.
>>
>> 2) My Dell Dimension 4700 is a P4 3.0GHz, 3GB RAM, one 250GB SATA II
>> 3.0Gbps
>> drive for Vista to be installed and one 500GB SATA II 3.0Gbps for the
>> recordings, with an eVGA NVidia GeForce 7600GT 256MB video card with dual
>> LCD displays attached.. I believe that to be a reasonable system. Do you?
>>
>> 3) My network is all Gigabit...or at least it was until I had to pull the
>> PCIe Gigabit NIC from the Dell to make room for the Hauppauge card. There
>> is
>> only one PCIe slot available, so that leaves me with the onboard 10/100
>> unless I get a PCI Gigabit NIC. For streaming an HDTV recording to an
>> "Extender for Windows Media Center" device for playback onto an HDTV, how
>> much bandwidth does it gobble?
>>
>> 4) I am looking for recommendations for a quality "Extender for Windows
>> Media Center" device. Any suggestions? Reading the forums for the devices
>> suggested by Microsoft is depressing, as no one seems to think any of
>> them
>> work well.
>>
>> Thank you for your time and suggestions!
>>
>> Gregg Hill
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Apostrophes: when in doubt, leave them out! You will be correct more
>> often
>> than not.
>>
>> Its = Belonging to it. For example, "Look at the sky. Its color is blue."
>> It's = It is. For example, "It's hot today."
>> It's = It has. For example, "It's been nice talking to you."
>> Its' = completely incorrect usage. Stop it!
>>