Decided to start trying other PVRs

[jptaz]

What HD Capture cards does MCE 2005 Support?

I can't seem to find any information on this on the microsoft site

[kny3twalker]

ATI HD wonder and Fusion Gold
the ATI has worked quite nicely since the SD tuner has been disabled
as far as I know

the fusion just recently got drivers to work in MCE so not sure
but with using the included software
the picture is suppose to be better than an ATI
and use less CPU

[mikejaner]

Mike, are you running HDTV through MCE2005 on your Celeron 2.4?

No, I am using a 3.0ghz P4 with 1 gig of ram and a Radeon 9800 in my MCE box. It is currently separate of my Sage Client machine, but that is going to change soon, so I don't have to shut down a machine, and fire up another one to go between Sage and MCE.

I have an AMD Barton 2500 with 1GB of RAM and probably will be moving my 9800 Pro to my HTPC. Will this be enough horsepower to handle HD in MCE and still use my 2 PVRs to record SD (theoretically all at the same time)?

You should have enough horsepower. I have read of some people having the same success as me with 2.4ghz class machines. I think when you get down to the 2.0 ghz range, that is when you will be pushing it.

Also, any reason you're not using MCE for all SD and HD programming?

Personal reasons. They both do recording quite well. MCE does have it's limitations, like only two tuners, three with HD, and one channel lineup. I only have one channel lineup with DirecTV. I personally like the flow and feel of Sage. I only use MCE because of the HD Content we watch. Like I said before 90% of our watching, including Live TV is with Sage. Once Frey puts in support for ATSC Tuners, I will be fully with Sage.

[Steve2112]

I too have installed MCE2005. I wanted to test it, and I was strolling down the isles at CompUSA and noticed a sale on the new PVR-150 card for $80. I am quite impressed with the UI of MCE2005. Right now I am running both - SageTV is currently my main PVR, and I have been playing around with MCE2005.

They both have their merits & weaknesses, so I have the best of both worlds

With MCE being priced basically the same as XP-Home, it also makes financial sense - you get the latest MS OS (and the only MS OS released that already contains SP2 and Media Player 10) plus the time shifting, PVR, party mode, picture shows, etc... Quite a bargain at around $139 or so.

I still love Sage as well!