Newbie Question

[tonynick]

Hi, I am a total newbie to this. I am looking at the SnapStream site and noticed you can get a hardware/software bundle. My question is do I have to use that receiver card that comes in the bundle? Can is use a different Hauppauge card? I have Directv and also Digital Cable. I also, want to have video out to go back to my A/V receiver. Can I use the WinTV-D, WinTV-Theater or WinTV-PVR-350 instead of the card that comes in the bundle?
Also, I have a Hughes Directv box and a SA Digital Cable box. Can I run both of them into the card at the same time? How do I tune them??? Thanks!!!!

[MattS]

All your newbies are belong to us

Yes, you can get a hardware / software bundle with the card which will come with the particular tuner you've chosen. Currently, we provide Hauppauge tuners with our software -- they generally seem to function the most reliably and we've been working with them long enough to assure most of the kinks have been worked out.

You do not have to use a card that is bundles with SnapStream -- the general notion is that cards with WMV drivers sets will function with SnapStream. So other Tuner / Capture cards or devices will work as well, (ex radeon theater cards, nvidia personal cinema...)....

Currently, only analog tuning and capture is supported (or input via Svideo, composite or coax from an external receiver) -- if you get a higher end digital card, you may and probably will not be able to get it working with snapstream, and some of these cards have not been tested.

In any case, you can also use an external receiver -- tuning is done with an device known as the IRBlaster which essentially emulates your remote control -- or there is another option that uses a serial tuning method for select receiver types-- refer to the support pages for more info. All of these items can be obtained through the snapstream online store.

You can run both of your recievers to your snapstream box at the same time (either via a manual switchbox or through seperate inputs) -- however, tuning and swapping between channel sets might be a problem, to my knowledge, the IR Blaster can only be setup to work with one device through snapstream.

[tonynick]

Thanks for the quick reply. So, I can use a Hauppauge 401 that you sell or a Theater 495 with Dolby or a PVR-250, But not a WinTV-D? Which do you think is my best option?

Thanks

[MattS]

The 495 should work great -- using the WDM drivers set.

Unfortuately 3.0 will have no support for VFW drivers, in which case the PVR-250 and the WinTV-D do not have WDM available... unless this has changed recently.

-- Do you plan to use this as a stand alone media server, or will you be using the computer for other things as well?

[tonynick]

Actually, it a a pc right next to my tv. I have a dual boot W2K and XP....both Pro versions. I use it for my internet connection and stuff like that. It has like 320GB of harddrive space so I wanted to put it to use.

So, I can use the 495 Theater or the one that comes with your bundle. The only realy difference is the Dolby Pro Logic. Am I correct? When is version 3.0 coming out?

Thanks Again!

[MattS]

Yea, right now the audio is recorded from the standard stereo audio that comes in from the analog signal -- I don't think the pro logic signal is actually captured (this is just an extension to standard stereo correct?) -- I don't know enough about this to say for sure.... If anyone knows I'd be interested in any information....