I currently have the Hauppauge PVR250 and it performs fantastically but I'd like a freeview digital card with the same features. I see theres the Nova card but its not a PVR (doesn't have a hardware MPEG encoder). Is there a reason for Hauppauge not having this availble or am I not looking hard enough?

I don't actually know, but most likely a digital card should capture the digital stream and not need a hardware encoder.

Matthew

I use digi-TV for this, I have a couple of them and a slave unit, so I can pretty much record everything at once. The current beta is giving me hassle, but the last official release in my sitting room works fine.

The software that comes with the Nova cards is terrible. Something like MythTV or SageTV (if Windows is all you know) is much better.

Terrible as in doesn't work? Buggy? I notice some cards on ebay are for MCE. Will they all work on standard XP?

I may as well as this here too as I found no answers on other forums, but can the Nova-T card live alongside the PVR-250 quite happily?

Terrible as in really only allow you to use it as a VCR. I have no idea how stable the Windows stuff is as I've never used it. I'm sure if you're going to use MCE then that won't be a problem. However from my understanding if the card doesn't say it's compatible with MCE then you'll have a hard time making it work.

They should work happily alongside other cards, although they interfere with my ordinary WinTV Go card tuner meaning I get interference on my analogue recordings.

I don't plan to use MCE at all.

So if I get the Nova-T is there any need for me to keep the (analogue) pvr250?

last question I promise... is the mpeg data DVD compliant or would I have to convert it prior to burning? The PVR encodes to dvd standard in real time which is handy.

The Nova will capture in either program stream or transport stream mode. If memory serves a DVD is a program stream so it should work. You may want some software to top and tail the files like VirtualDub, it might also be able to perform any necessary recoding at the same time.

The trouble with using a MCE spec card in a non-MCE intall of XP is that they don't usually ship them with software and a remote. I've just got one for my MCE machine and it came with nothing, just a free anti-static bag.

I am used to Tivo, so the MCE interface is pretty crap for PVR functions, but I have seen andym's MythTV setup and it's pretty impressive (although still a little buggy I think?) I can't speak for any other interface, but I imagine they are all pretty much as crap as each other.

Why don't Tivo do MCE type thing for PC's? (or even better macs!)

Cheers

Cris.

I do fancy it but me and linux don't go together. I'd end up with an expensive mess :S

Now I think of it maybe nows the time to do it? I have bought the Nova card and a large hardrive already. Hmmm am I brave though :S

Give knoppmyth a try. It's a bootable CD distro designed to run Myth, wouldn't hurt to give it a try.