A few questions from a newbie

[ould]

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie here but have been reading through the forums for a couple weeks now as I am in in the process of putting together my first HTPC. I have the basics all together at this point(cpu, mobo, ram, hd's, video card etc). I am now at the point where I am deciding what tuners I want to have available to me. Here is where the confusion sets in, lol.

Right now I presently have OTA HDTV via an STB and I also have a Dishnetwork receiver. The is pre HTPC obviously but I just wanted to let you all know what I am using presently. I don't have cable of any sort except for internet access, I do get whatever comes into my house as basic but the picture is bad so I am not bothering with an anologue tuner of any sort at this time. Once my HTPC is setup I will probably move the STB's for use in another part of the house.

What I have planned is to get a DVB-S card for sure and use that to receive my satellite signals, which will most likely be two providers via switches and mulitple dishes. I think I have everything I need to get this all setup as I have been perusing the EPG threads with regards to this and although it sounds confusing I think I will be able to figure something out which will work for my needs.

My main issue is with OTA HD. I am hoping I can keep this functionality as I like the pic I get with OTA and it seems better than what I have seen at friends places who have cable/satellite HD. My questions with regards to this is how exactly does the EPG info work for OTA in a PC environment? I live in Toronto so I get a good mix of both Canadian channels and Buffalo channels. I have not been able to find much talk of OTA and EPG on here so thought I would ask before purchasing an OTA card. Will I have to go the same route as with my DVB-S setup and use a mix of Zap2IT with XML stuff? Or is there an easier method for OTA, I am hoping one of my setups will be relatively straight forward as it seems like the DVB-s will take much configuring to get running smoothly.

Anyone out there who is running OTA in Toronto(or anywhere actually) care to shed some light here before I order an OTA card, actually I am thinking of buying HD package from Sage which includes the OTA card, license for Sage and a remote, comments on this package are appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance, very excited to get my HTPC up and running in the near future.

Kevin