I'm planning to put together a TV-recording media centre type PC, from spare parts I have.

I'm looking at the Hauppauge Win TV PVR 350 as it uses a hardware MPEG-2 encoder, so I don't need a beast of PC to do the encoding. But I can't find out if it does freeview channels as well?

If it doesn't, does anyone use a TV card with a hardware encoder, that receives freeview?

Thanks

Steve

PVR-350 is analogue only, so no freeview.

What you need depends on what application you plan to use as a frontend.

I use the Mediacenter 2005 edition of XP, with two Nova-T PCI cards in for freeview. If you get these, then the drivers on the supplied CD are not dual tuner compatible. The latest ones from Hauppauges website are needed.

OK, thanks - that answers my question then :(

So there's no available Hauppauge with a decent hardware decoder AND freeview support?

I did look at the Nova-T card, and a twin setup is tempting to allow viewing while recording. But I may only be using a machine with a 1ghz CPU, so that might struggle when encoding.

Was looking at using MCE when I get everything running. GB-PVR does look tempting as well though.

Steve