Current advice on video cards (PVR 250, 500, ATI Theater 550)

[DwarF]

I will be running Sage 4.1, with a GeForce 6600 video card. I will likely buy a seperate remote and music, including FM is as important as the PVR functionality. I have been reading over the past threads, and some of them are a bit dated and left some dangling concerns about the ATI Theater 550 chipset.

My question is, jumping into this with a fresh system, which is the best tuner? I don't want to start a holy war or anything, but I am having a hard time discerning the characteristics that set the ATI Theater 550 chipset apart from the pvr 250.

I like the dual tuner capability of the Hauppage 500, but the MCE confuses me. Do I have to run MCE to use this card? Can I run it on windows 2k with Sage?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[blade]

Originally Posted by DwarF

I will be running Sage 4.1, with a GeForce 6600 video card. I will likely buy a seperate remote and music, including FM is as important as the PVR functionality.

Sage doesn't do FM, you'll need to use another program to handle that.

I like the dual tuner capability of the Hauppage 500, but the MCE confuses me. Do I have to run MCE to use this card? Can I run it on windows 2k with Sage?

No, you don't need MCE. The only difference is the MCE version of the 150 doesn't come with a remote while the non-MCE version does. The 500 only comes in the MCE version. You're better off IMO getting the MCE version then getting a good remote somewhere else, you'll have a lot less problems.

Personally I'd get a 500 or 150 before I would the 250 because of the price difference. They're newer models and are less expensive. Some people still like the 250 better, but for the money they just aren't worth it IMO.

I've never used the ATI Theater 550 so I can't comment on it.

[m0ng00se30]

DwarF

A lot of time this is an "In the eye of the beholder" question. Let me answer what I can. The 500 works well with Sage.. I run a 500, and a 250. I feel the 500 has a lot better capture quality over the 250s that it replaced. Others might disagree as it seems to be someone based on setup. I don't believe there is an issue with 2K, but please get some verification with some of the guys running 2K here first. I only have limited knowledge of the 550... I've used Sage with my 1800xl briefly (1800 has a built in 550) and it worked. Colors looked a little better, but a little grainy in the very small time I tried it (less than an hour). I think SHS (on this forum) uses 550s.

There is NO radio support in Sage, not even plugin hacked together radio that I know of...

Only other thing that comes to mind is be sure you stay away from via based motherboards!! And be prepared... Sage can turn into a passion its hard to go back to normal TV.

Good Luck

--Mike