Hauppauge 500 and WinXP

[toojeep4u]

I am new to the whole HTPC thing. I have a Leadtek WinTV XP which looks good with the bundled software but I want to move to BTV and BM. I am interested in a 500 with plans of having 2 of these installed. They say that MCE is required, is that true with BTV or will XPPro work just as well? And if the 500 is two 150's, what is wrong with the 150's that people seem to shy away from them? Thanks for helping a rookie out.

[gjunky]

The 500 will work on WinXP (non-MCE).
Keep in mind that it does NOT come with a remote and it does NOT have an IR receiver for it either.

-gjunky

[ejdriscoll]

I don't get the impression that many people are shying away from the 150's. On the contrary, most places that sell them seem to be having a hard time keeping them in stock. The card has received very positive reviews in all the places I monitor and is generally described as being as good as the 250 but at a cheaper price.

I bought a 150MCE when they first become available on buy.com and I'm happy with it (although at the moment I'm using it in my primary desktop to watch TV and digitize old videos, not in my HTPC box).

[toojeep4u]

So the 500 MCE does work in standard XP Pro? Good because I use a domain in my home and MCE doesn't support domains. Even though it doesn't have a remote I can still use a Firefly just easy correct? Now am I just wasting my time by trying to use my Leadtek card in my new recorder I am building? What about my old Voodoo 3500 with TV? Is BTV just going to laugh at me?

[balticgreen]

Some people are shying away from the 150 because of the problems reported here, driver and otherwise. I was having some major problems with my 150 but after I replaced my ATI tuner with another 150, both of my 150s now work. Except that I'm still experiencing the "stretch" issue but it goes away after each card is initialized the first time after system boot. I believe that's a BTV issue, not an issue with the 150 itself.

The quality is very good and the price is right. But use the drivers from Snapstream, not the ones from Hauppauge, and don't try to use it with a software tuner. Once the stretch issue is fixed, it will be the perfect card.

[toojeep4u]

What do you mean a software tuner? If BTV controls the card's tuner wouldn't it be a software tuner? Or are you talking about STB instead?

[Baylo]

No - he means something like an All-In-Wonder card that does the encoding in software using the PC's CPU rather than hardware encoding such as that performed on the Hauppauge card.

Mark

[soham]

Hello all,

Please visit "http://www.snapstream.com/Download/hardware/default.asp". The Pre-Release drivers are now available. They address the zoomed video issue.

[merrypig]

(and don't support closed captions 8( ... sniff)

[noodleNT]

What about my old Voodoo 3500 with TV?

For the display, not out of the box and very limited. I would suggest upgarding to a video card that can hand Direct3D. The voodoo will need to be put into Software rending mode which will stress the CPU.

For the Tuner\recorder part, I have not tried it. If the voodoo will be used as the main display card also then I would say don't bother. The stress on the CPU is going to be to great even for a good CPU.