This being SD, I'm sure someone here has their own nice DVR/HTPC setup.

I know I could spend a couple of hours Google'ing whats out there but seems much easier
to see what you guys already have setup and working for you.

Anyways, we're dropping our digital cable and DVR's (keeping basic though)

As much as I'd hate to lose the DVR, $30 a month for two is getting expensive (+ required HD service charge)

So I'm looking at turning our "movie computer' into a full time DVR now.

Three things I need:
A TV Tuner (PCI or USB) [Also need to record at least 2 channels]
Software for recording TV, must also have a TV Guide of some sort.
and a good remote to control it all. (PC & TV control)

If needed, here's the specs:
AMD 4850e (2.5GHz)
4GB RAM
Win 7
100GB HD (Small for recording, but I can add another to the setup later)

EDIT:
Also, the software should be VERY user friendly.
While I love advanced options and tons of controls, this computer will need to be setup for ease (just like the actual DVR)

A TV Tuner (PCI or USB) [Also need to record at least 2 channels]
You generally need one tuner for each channel you want to record at the same time. This is not always true, but basically yeah.

If you can get a really good deal on PCI cards, I'd go for it, but most are USB nowadays, and USB ones are obviously more versatile due to not needing a PCI slot. You can get USB ones from Meritline on sale for under $20. I have one. It's ok.

Windows 7 already has Media Center built-in, and it's great for what it is. Generally super easy to use, has the built-in TV guide, etc. I would recommend starting with that, and then if you want something more powerful or just simply something different, go from there.

You also need an antenna to receive the signals, of course.

If you are going to make your own dvr with Win7 Media Center, why not keep digital cable? Return the cable company's dvrs and buy one of those units that support cablecard to go with your homemade dvr. Cablecard rental is usually much less than a dvr rental.

Your PCs specs are fine except you'll want to add a larger HDD and (likely) a GPU. I use your processors little brother 4050e + an HD 4350 GPU and it's flawless. As long as you have W7 home premium or better, you have media center built in. Media center is very good.

The tuner(s) you buy depends upon your signal. If your signal is analog, you need an NTSC tuner. If your signal is digital, you need a QAM tuner. In general, most cable companies broadcast the major networks in QAM (your TV's tuner would pick them up as 5.1, 7.2, 27.1, etc) and the other basic channels (ie public access) in analog (tv's tuner picks them up as 3,4,5). I'm assuming your TV has ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners, btw.

As WackyP said, if you just want to cut your DVR & cable box fees but not your cable subscription, you can buy a cablecard tuner like this (http://www.amazon.com/Ceton-InfiniTV-Digital-Cable-Quad-tuner/dp/B003B4VLJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328026359&sr=8-1), this (http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-WinTV-DCR-2650-Tuner-Cable/dp/B005FPT38A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1328026466&sr=8-2), or this (http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHR3-CC-HDHomeRun-CableCARD-Television/dp/B004HKIB6E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1328026493&sr=8-4). With these, you'd rent a CableCard from your TV company rather than a box. The card is either free or only a few bucks and picks up any channels that you subscribe to, including HD and premium. You'd then use your PC as a DVR.

As others have said, Win7 Home Premium or better is all the software that you'll need for a dedicated HTPC - I'm assuming that the specs you listed were for something that you're willing to stash next to the TV permanently; otherwise, you need to get one.

The HDD listed won't cut it in the least, 100 GB will give you plenty of standard definition recording, but probably a few hours of HD at the most. I'd strongly recommend a second drive with 750 GB-2TB of space. This will also give you plenty of room for movie and music storage.

TV Tuner - Ceton (http://cetoncorp.com/) is the best option available right now, especially for WMC. I have the 4 tuner PCIe card, but the USB tuners are just as good. Production a year ago was way behind, but they fill orders almost immediately now.

Cable - you didn't ask, but I'll elaborate on what other's have said. You can ditch the boxes completely and drop your cable bill down to whatever service you want plus a CableCARD ($3 per month). Don't forget to make sure that you ask and receive a Tuning Adapter from your cable company as well; they should be offered free and take up about 1/2 the space of a set top box. These boxes allow you to watch cable channels (ESPN, CNN/Fox, etc.)

Remotes - sorry, can't help you there, but you should be able to use any decent remote along with an IR blaster into your computer.

Helpful resources for setup, tweaks, and problems:

Green Button (http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/)

Seven Forums (http://www.sevenforums.com/media-center/)

Hack 7 MC (http://www.hack7mc.com/)

Also, build your own pvr: byopvr.com

Cable - you didn't ask, but I'll elaborate on what other's have said. You can ditch the boxes completely and drop your cable bill down to whatever service you want plus a CableCARD ($3 per month). Don't forget to make sure that you ask and receive a Tuning Adapter from your cable company as well; they should be offered free and take up about 1/2 the space of a set top box. These boxes allow you to watch cable channels (ESPN, CNN/Fox, etc.)

You don't need a tuning adapter if you're using a cable card device. The point of the cablecard is to turn your PC (well, the tuner attached to the PC) into the tuning adapter. You need a tuner adapter + IR blaster if you're getting encrypted digital cable and are using an NTSC tuner instead of a cablecard tuner. The NTSC (analog) tuner can handle the analog signal leaving the adapter but not the encrypted digital signal entering the adapter.

Not quite. A ntsc tuner is used for analog cable (something like 2-78) if your cable company is still using those. Unencrypted digital cable channels can be tuned with a QAM tuner. Those usually do not match the regular box numbers so you get weird numbers like 115.280 instead of 235. Plus the numbering is often not stable, so you might have to rescan to find the in-the-clear channels.

With a cablecard solution, you do get the regular channel numbering system. Downside is that you do not get on-demand. Cablecard solutions also do not support Switched Digital Video out out the box. Switched Digital Video is where the cable companies do not broadcast a channel 24/7 to save bandwidth. Only when a user tunes to the channel does the cable company starts broadcasting it. For a cablecard user, you would need a tuning adapter. According to a couple reviews, the Silicondust stuff has trouble with some tuning adapters. Of course whether you need the tuning adapter with your cablecard depends on whether your cable company uses Switched Digital Video. You will know this because some channels (not all) simply will not work.

Not quite. A ntsc tuner is used for analog cable (something like 2-78) if your cable company is still using those. Unencrypted digital cable channels can be tuned with a QAM tuner. Those usually do not match the regular box numbers so you get weird numbers like 115.280 instead of 235. Plus the numbering is often not stable, so you might have to rescan to find the in-the-clear channels.

With a cablecard solution, you do get the regular channel numbering system. Downside is that you do not get on-demand. Cablecard solutions also do not support Switched Digital Video out out the box. Switched Digital Video is where the cable companies do not broadcast a channel 24/7 to save bandwidth. Only when a user tunes to the channel does the cable company starts broadcasting it. For a cablecard user, you would need a tuning adapter. According to a couple reviews, the Silicondust stuff has trouble with some tuning adapters. Of course whether you need the tuning adapter with your cablecard depends on whether your cable company uses Switched Digital Video. You will know this because some channels (not all) simply will not work.

^^ This is the more technical part of what I was trying to say. In most major markets, if you have a cablecard installed into a tuner, you will most likely need a Tuning Adapter. They can handle up to 4 tuners at once and they're free. So, the only thing that it costs you is an extra plug off your power strip.

Also, my entire post was based on the assumption that you're only looking to use 1 TV. If you want to distribute video to multiple monitors, we need to talk about extenders (XBox 360 is the best) and running a network cable to each TV.

Not quite. A ntsc tuner is used for analog cable (something like 2-78) if your cable company is still using those. Unencrypted digital cable channels can be tuned with a QAM tuner. Those usually do not match the regular box numbers so you get weird numbers like 115.280 instead of 235. Plus the numbering is often not stable, so you might have to rescan to find the in-the-clear channels.

With a cablecard solution, you do get the regular channel numbering system. Downside is that you do not get on-demand. Cablecard solutions also do not support Switched Digital Video out out the box. Switched Digital Video is where the cable companies do not broadcast a channel 24/7 to save bandwidth. Only when a user tunes to the channel does the cable company starts broadcasting it. For a cablecard user, you would need a tuning adapter. According to a couple reviews, the Silicondust stuff has trouble with some tuning adapters. Of course whether you need the tuning adapter with your cablecard depends on whether your cable company uses Switched Digital Video. You will know this because some channels (not all) simply will not work.
good explanation of the difference between tuning adapters and SDV adapters :thumbup:

Your PCs specs are fine except you'll want to add a larger HDD and (likely) a GPU. I use your processors little brother 4050e + an HD 4350 GPU and it's flawless.
For the record, I know Media Center + HD + crappy built-in Intel graphics on a $300 laptop works great. It has an older but pretty solid T-something dual-core CPU; I forget the exact model at the moment.

Anyway, yeah, 100gb won't go too far with HD.

So maybe I want to hodgpodge something like this together to work with DirecTV. Is that possible? I mean would there be a way to

* output the DTV to a PC via HDMI
* Control DTV Receiver through IR Blaster from the HTPCDVRTHINGY
* output via HDMI from HTPCDVRTHINGY to TV / surround receiver

I know it would be only 1 channel at a time with the directv deal, but I would be able to consolidate playback on the HTPC of other stuff and record TV on my secondary TV.

So maybe I want to hodgpodge something like this together to work with DirecTV. Is that possible? I mean would there be a way to

* output the DTV to a PC via HDMI
* Control DTV Receiver through IR Blaster from the HTPCDVRTHINGY
* output via HDMI from HTPCDVRTHINGY to TV / surround receiver

I know it would be only 1 channel at a time with the directv deal, but I would be able to consolidate playback on the HTPC of other stuff and record TV on my secondary TV.
No product that I know of allows you to do step 1. You can buy this (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html) and do everything you want via component, but not HDMI. If you don't care about HD, you can use any old NTSC tuner that has composite adapters. The rest is a piece of cake.

OK say I have my DirecTV official DVR, can I stream all the recordings from that over to my HTPC? I'd be almost as happy if I could do that.

Dropping the digital cable also saves a few more $$ per month, so we're not keeping it...

However I believe I may have confused some by calling it digital.
Before the all the broadcasts changed to digital, that's what we referred to our 100+ and 200+ channels.

The cable company broadcasts the same way, we have old CRT TV's that still pick up just fine with no converter or box, just a hookup to the coax on the well.

The small hard drive isn't a huge issue right now since we are also dropping the HD package.
I love it, but I'm about the only one who records it (what limited selection we have)

OK say I have my DirecTV official DVR, can I stream all the recordings from that over to my HTPC? I'd be almost as happy if I could do that.

Highly unlikely due to DRM issues and we're not allowed to discuss circumventing such copyright restrictions, not to mention that streaming from DirecTV is notoriously difficult anyway especially in a Windows environment.

Dropping the digital cable also saves a few more $$ per month, so we're not keeping it...

However I believe I may have confused some by calling it digital.
Before the all the broadcasts changed to digital, that's what we referred to our 100+ and 200+ channels.

The cable company broadcasts the same way, we have old CRT TV's that still pick up just fine with no converter or box, just a hookup to the coax on the well.

The small hard drive isn't a huge issue right now since we are also dropping the HD package.
I love it, but I'm about the only one who records it (what limited selection we have)

I understand about not needing/wanting the HD package since your TV can't display the high quality picture anyway - but 100GB is still very small by today's standards and remember that Win 7 needs room for swap files and such. I still strongly recommend a second internal drive or an eSATA external.

As for ditching the digital signal - yeah, I think we all misread that and I didn't even know that cable companies offered packages that small, though this eliminates the need for a cablecard tuner configuration. Which severely narrows your options, I think.

I understand about not needing/wanting the HD package since your TV can't display the high quality picture anyway - but 100GB is still very small by today's standards and remember that Win 7 needs room for swap files and such. I still strongly recommend a second internal drive or an eSATA external.

As for ditching the digital signal - yeah, I think we all misread that and I didn't even know that cable companies offered packages that small, though this eliminates the need for a cablecard tuner configuration. Which severely narrows your options, I think.

Well the TV that will used for this does HD, we'll just no longer have that package.

I'm sure for most people the Hard Drive is rather small, but I'm also coming from a pretty horrible DVR.
It reset more than it ever should (soft reset), always brought you back to live tv when a show was over (instead of the option to delete/save it) and it has a tiny 160GB hard drive.

Had this been last year, I'd be all over dropping a 500+GB hard drive in, but the prices are just to crazy right now. I do have a few spare 80GB's, I'll drop one of those in for now.

In severely narrowing my options, I hope that is a good thing? Just getting me right where I need and am looking to be.

No cable card tuners needed, just a dual or more regular tuner.
Preferably still a newer digital tuner though, in case we ever drop cable all together.

Well the TV that will used for this does HD, we'll just no longer have that package.

I'm sure for most people the Hard Drive is rather small, but I'm also coming from a pretty horrible DVR.
It reset more than it ever should (soft reset), always brought you back to live tv when a show was over (instead of the option to delete/save it) and it has a tiny 160GB hard drive.

Had this been last year, I'd be all over dropping a 500+GB hard drive in, but the prices are just to crazy right now. I do have a few spare 80GB's, I'll drop one of those in for now.

In severely narrowing my options, I hope that is a good thing? Just getting me right where I need and am looking to be.

No cable card tuners needed, just a dual or more regular tuner.
Preferably still a newer digital tuner though, in case we ever drop cable all together.
No, you're not limited. Just the opposite. CableCard tuners are limited. There are really only 3 on the market. Tuners are pretty ubiquitous, though.

To make sure you're safe, you should get some ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners. These can handle anything you throw at it (besides encrypted cable, of course). Many cable companies are switching from analog to digital to save bandwidth, though not always in the basic channel package. Not sure if there are any slickdeals around on them, though.

I use multiple Hauppauge 950q tuners and a cheapo KWorld QAM/NTSC tuner that I had to spend a lot of time with to get it working properly. I'd recommend the Hauppauge ones but they've gotten pricey ($70-80 on Amazon). PCI/PCIe card may be cheaper -- I'm not sure. On occasion, I've sometimes seen TV tuners for supercheap at RadioShack when they were doing their random markdowns, but big YMMV.

If you don't want to deal with a PC based DVR, a lifetime TivoHD box could be an option too ($300-$400 on ebay). I have one and it paid for itself in about 3.5 years. I know it sounds long but I would have been paying the cable company for their DVR too.
The price of the Centon quad tuner is a little steep for me. I would like an option with only 2 tuners for let's say half the price. I would think that you need to rent 2 cable cards to be able to feed the quad tuner unless they have upgraded cards that can do 4 channels.

============

Actually, first google search landed me on this device. Seems promising.
$119 Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 Dual Tuner CableCARD Receiver for Windows (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=816786&Q=&is=REG&A=details)

If you don't want to deal with a PC based DVR, a lifetime TivoHD box could be an option too ($300-$400 on ebay). I have one and it paid for itself in about 3.5 years. I know it sounds long but I would have been paying the cable company for their DVR too.
The price of the Centon quad tuner is a little steep for me. I would like an option with only 2 tuners for let's say half the price. I would think that you need to rent 2 cable cards to be able to feed the quad tuner unless they have upgraded cards that can do 4 channels.

============

Actually, first google search landed me on this device. Seems promising.
$119 Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 Dual Tuner CableCARD Receiver for Windows (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=816786&Q=&is=REG&A=details)
I think you've figured this out -- the hauppauge tuner is the dual tuner that you want. Silicon dust's tuner is 3, Ceton's is 4.

And you only need one cablecard for each device, not each tuner. you need an m-type cablecard, not an s-type.

And PCs are far superior to Tivos imho. Not only are the infinitely customizable but they also allow for features like streaming your recorded TV over the internet.

One downside of a TiVoHD that should be mentioned, especially if buying it used off Ebay or whatever, is that the HDD is difficult-to-impossible to replace if it ever fails. And, once you lose the HDD, the lifetime membership goes with it.

You can ghost the drive and swap it out, but that must be done before it fails, and it's not the simplest thing to do. If it does work, you'll have a HDD that you might never need and it's money literally sitting on a shelf.

I think you've figured this out -- the hauppauge tuner is the dual tuner that you want. Silicon dust's tuner is 3, Ceton's is 4.

And you only need one cablecard for each device, not each tuner. you need an m-type cablecard, not an s-type.

And PCs are far superior to Tivos imho. Not only are the infinitely customizable but they also allow for features like streaming your recorded TV over the internet.

Can you confirm that a single M card can do 3 or 4 streams? Have they updated the spec?
Yes, PC is way superior in computing power but it may lag behind in support/fixing issues as they arise on the Media Center side, where Tivo has been great at because DVRs are their sole business.

One downside of a TiVoHD that should be mentioned, especially if buying it used off Ebay or whatever, is that the HDD is difficult-to-impossible to replace if it ever fails. And, once you lose the HDD, the lifetime membership goes with it.

You can ghost the drive and swap it out, but that must be done before it fails, and it's not the simplest thing to do. If it does work, you'll have a HDD that you might never need and it's money literally sitting on a shelf.

It's not difficult if you are even little bit computer literate. My tivo shipped with a 160GB drive. I purchased a 1TB and with a free app available from the tivo community forums I was able to clone the OS on the new drive along with all the shows on it. If your only drive fails, http://www.weaknees.com/ sells a DVD that can pretty much install the tivo OS on your drive. The hard drive is not what makes your tivo unique and is certainly not tied to your lifetime membership. If the motherboard fails then you are SOL.

Can you confirm that a single M card can do 3 or 4 streams? Have they updated the spec?
Yes, PC is way superior in computing power but it may lag behind in support/fixing issues as they arise on the Media Center side, where Tivo has been great at because DVRs are their sole business.


yes, ceton and SD HDHRP only require one card.

WMC's been around awhile. Most bugs have been fixed from my experience.

Thanks
I may give that dual tuner setup a try along with a small form factor Dell or HP Core 2 duo based PC for the bedroom. At $2.99 or 3.99/per month, this DVR is hard to beat when it comes down to long term cost.

yes, ceton and SD HDHRP only require one card.

WMC's been around awhile. Most bugs have been fixed from my experience.
:iagree:

I've been in and out of Media Center since Windows XP. It's flawless now. It will also auto migrate my shows to my WHS, so I basically have 2 TB of storage available to me to record shows to without even thinking about it.

WMC is the best out there now, bar none.

I've got Cox with the Hauppauge DCR-2650 and the Cisco tuning adapter provided by Cox and I haven't had any trouble. My desktop which is already on 24/7 does all the recording and then my Xbox 360 is a perfectly good extender.

WMC is the best out there now, bar none.

"Best in what way" would be the obvious reply. Something like NextPVR can do more but takes more setup time.

"Best in what way" would be the obvious reply. Something like NextPVR can do more but takes more setup time.
Like what?

"Best in what way" would be the obvious reply. Something like NextPVR can do more but takes more setup time.
Yeah, I'm curious on the additional features as well. Browsing the site quickly I don't see anything WMC can't do either natively or with plugins like RemotePotato. But I'd like to learn.

:iagree:

I've been in and out of Media Center since Windows XP. It's flawless now. It will also auto migrate my shows to my WHS, so I basically have 2 TB of storage available to me to record shows to without even thinking about it.

WMC is the best out there now, bar none.

I've got Cox with the Hauppauge DCR-2650 and the Cisco tuning adapter provided by Cox and I haven't had any trouble. My desktop which is already on 24/7 does all the recording and then my Xbox 360 is a perfectly good extender.
I wouldn't say flawless. It still has one weird bug where when I delete certain TV recordings, my recordings list will scrolls 5-10 pages to the side (I think always left). I can't figure out what's causing it.

Yeah, I'm curious on the additional features as well. Browsing the site quickly I don't see anything WMC can't do either natively or with plugins like RemotePotato. But I'd like to learn.

Yep, looks like WMC had more plugins than last time I looked. RemotePotato was a big one. I don't think it's been all that long for certain things though, such as internet radio and media extenders.

Let's see, what's some other stuff I don't think WMC can do...
No DRM doesn't hurt.
Records straight to .ts instead of .wtv (easier to manipulate files)
Re-encode to other formats. (I think WMC has at least one plugin that can do this. Not sure how good it is or what formats.)
A couple more options for when to record a show.
No limit on tuners. WMC limit is four digital unless they changed it recently.
Can record multiple channels off the same stream using one tuner.

Stuff like that. Do most people need more than four tuners? No. Do most people manipulate recorded files and prefer the more-common .ts format? Probably not. I've used both PVRs on and off, (and a couple other ones), and NextPVR just always seemed one step (or two!) ahead with what it could do. MVP as an extender, multi-monitor support, auto-skipping and auto-cutting out commercials, remember when WMC required an analog tuner card to set up even though you only wanted to use digital? ugh, etc.

That being said, WMC is the first thing I recommend to people when they ask about PVRs.

Here's a short thread I just happened upon where someone mentions Next on the WMC forum. They mention the padding between shows on the same channel/tuner. I forgot about that. It's a minor thing, but when one software program has it and then you use one that doesn't, it can be a little annoying.
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=579

One interesting thing (to me) about it is, other than various plugins, NextPVR is basically developed by one guy. And he has a day job. Stuff like that is funny when a big corporation says they can't do this or that or don't have the man-power to do this or that. One that comes to mind was WMC's problem with subchannels on a stream. Users bombarded the WMC forum for a long time about that.

From my understanding, everything other than Windows Media Center is not ideal for use with cablecard. Reason for this is all the other cablecard-aware dvr software only supports "Copy Freely". Thus if your cable company puts a copy restriction on the show/channel, you cannot record the show if you use the other dvr software. Last I heard, FIOS did not put any restrictions but almost everybody else is copy-protecting something.

Yep, looks like WMC had more plugins than last time I looked. RemotePotato was a big one. I don't think it's been all that long for certain things though, such as internet radio and media extenders.

Let's see, what's some other stuff I don't think WMC can do...
No DRM doesn't hurt.
Records straight to .ts instead of .wtv (easier to manipulate files)
Re-encode to other formats. (I think WMC has at least one plugin that can do this. Not sure how good it is or what formats.)
A couple more options for when to record a show.
No limit on tuners. WMC limit is four digital unless they changed it recently.
Can record multiple channels off the same stream using one tuner.

Stuff like that. Do most people need more than four tuners? No. Do most people manipulate recorded files and prefer the more-common .ts format? Probably not. I've used both PVRs on and off, (and a couple other ones), and NextPVR just always seemed one step (or two!) ahead with what it could do. MVP as an extender, multi-monitor support, auto-skipping and auto-cutting out commercials, remember when WMC required an analog tuner card to set up even though you only wanted to use digital? ugh, etc.

That being said, WMC is the first thing I recommend to people when they ask about PVRs.

Here's a short thread I just happened upon where someone mentions Next on the WMC forum. They mention the padding between shows on the same channel/tuner. I forgot about that. It's a minor thing, but when one software program has it and then you use one that doesn't, it can be a little annoying.
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=579

One interesting thing (to me) about it is, other than various plugins, NextPVR is basically developed by one guy. And he has a day job. Stuff like that is funny when a big corporation says they can't do this or that or don't have the man-power to do this or that. One that comes to mind was WMC's problem with subchannels on a stream. Users bombarded the WMC forum for a long time about that.

I'm not sure about the re-encoding, I'm living in a DRM'ed world, so without WMC I'd have nothing. WTV can be edited, there are a few ways for automatically skipping commercials and automatically cutting them from shows.

For tuners, it looks like you can triple your limit: http://mychannellogos.com/TunerSalad.aspx

I just don't see anything that NextPVR does that WMC doesn't already do and in some cases, does better.

So does anyone have a good PCI/USB Tuner card to recommend?

No cable card ones, just a regular (ATSC) tuner. (Dual or more, or I can double up for a quad setup...assuming I can do that)

EDIT:
Or if anyone has a good stand alone DVR to recommend.
I'm aware of TiVo, but I'd rather not get rid of one bill to replace it with another.

So does anyone have a good PCI/USB Tuner card to recommend?

No cable card ones, just a regular (ATSC) tuner. (Dual or more, or I can double up for a quad setup...assuming I can do that)

EDIT:
Or if anyone has a good stand alone DVR to recommend.
I'm aware of TiVo, but I'd rather not get rid of one bill to replace it with another.
I use hauppauge 950Qs and am quite happy with them. They're USB tuners. However, I haven't done comparisons to see which ones are better/worse.

:iagree:

I've been in and out of Media Center since Windows XP. It's flawless now. It will also auto migrate my shows to my WHS, so I basically have 2 TB of storage available to me to record shows to without even thinking about it.

WMC is the best out there now, bar none.

I've got Cox with the Hauppauge DCR-2650 and the Cisco tuning adapter provided by Cox and I haven't had any trouble. My desktop which is already on 24/7 does all the recording and then my Xbox 360 is a perfectly good extender.

Have you had any issues between the CableCard Tuner, TA etc.
Also, how good is the WMCs program guide?

Have you had any issues between the CableCard Tuner, TA etc.
Also, how good is the WMCs program guide?
They've been great, no issues. I really like the guide with WMC, it's perfect for my area and the movie browser is great.