Dish 811 box into Windows Media Center

[marco916]

This is Newbie question, Hi all, I have the Dish 811 Box and Windows Xp Media Center 2005 with an ATI Radeon TV Tuner card, "can't remember which model right now" My question is can I take one of the outgoing signals from the 811 into the Media Center box, I assume S-video output, because I'm utilizing the component outputs to the TV, the DVI I'm not using from the 811 because my set only has one DVI input and I'm using it up already from the DVD player. I'm not looking into doing HD quality into the Media Center, just want to be able to record TV.

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

ATI's TV tuners are simply put junk.

For home brew setups a site called Build Your Own PVR is a good place for help.

 

[petrozio]

Yes!, I have an ATI 9800Pro video card and have it hooked up to my 811. I use the RCA connections. Works fine. I agree, the ATI cards are problematic.

 

[kelboy]

ATI's TV tuners are simply put junk.
For home brew setups a site called ... is a good place for help.

WOW... that was very helpful?
I've used them for years and they work great...
Better to go with the "tried and true" homebrew setup!LOL! yah right...
Linux HTPC are soo..soo...user friendly...
yep use the Svideo and capture from composite...
here's the settings i use and the DVD's look great....
I can't post the link but digitalfaq has a very good mpeg-2 capture walkthru.

 

[BigDaddyJ]

I use the 811 into a Haupauge PVR150 tuner card through the S-Video connection and get very good results in MCE 2005.

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Sorry but once you try MCE 2005 (or Myth Tv) with a dual tuner Haupange card you'll under stand why ATI All In Wonder TV cards are crap. The simple fact that 100% of the Encoding/Decoding on Haupange cards is many times faster than that of ATI AIW cards who off load onto the PC Processor at high encoding bit rates.

And you obviously didn't look over that site very well Kelboy it covers quite a few options and if you search for comparison of TV tuner cards on ANY search engine you'll see that Haupauge are the touted ones in the home brew personal PVR's.

So what that I didn't give him tons of info or tell him it could be done with his current card. But if hes looking to do DVD quality like most his ATI card will not cut it and gave it to him straight up that ATI cards stink.

 

[bobhaze]

You guys are being a little too general by stating that all ATI cards stink. While my experience agrees with yours about the AIW cards, the new TV Wonder Elite is quite good. Some say it is even better than the Hauppauge cards, and from the results I see on a friend's PC compared to mine they may be right.
The difference is HW encoding in the Hauppauge and TV Wonder Elite vs. SW encoding in the AIW and older TV Wonder.
I'm using a Hauppauge PVR250 with S-video and Beyond TV with the 811. Works great within the limits if the 811's S-video output quality.
Bob

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Your correct that I haven't seen or tried the Elite ATI cards. But if there anything like the Tech Preview ATI put out for HDTV then Hauppauge defiantly has there work cut out for them in SD and HD processing in the months to come.

But as I did state the ATI AIW cards are the ones I hate simply because of the software encoding instead of hardware. It is this reason you can"t use them in a PVR you plan to watch in real time with.

 

[marco916]

Thanks

Thanks for all the wonderful comments, and the other PVR forum, as I stated before I'm newbie in the Media Center arena, but have built simple PC's from scratch for years, and as I can see from the thread, it's all in the video card, the reason why I'm using the ATI Radeon card, because I got it free, can't beat that. It works great when I was pumping in the analog signal into it, and playback to the HD set look fine, wasn't looking for HD quality playback. Just some shows I missed. But since I switched from Comcast to Dish Network, I lost the analog signal with the 811 box. I've been using ATI cards for the past few years for gaming, and they seem to work great.

Thanks
MM

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Thanks for all the wonderful comments, and the other PVR forum, as I stated before I'm newbie in the Media Center arena, but have built simple PC's from scratch for years, and as I can see from the thread, it's all in the video card, the reason why I'm using the ATI Radeon card, because I got it free, can't beat that. It works great when I was pumping in the analog signal into it, and playback to the HD set look fine, wasn't looking for HD quality playback. Just some shows I missed. But since I switched from Comcast to Dish Network, I lost the analog signal with the 811 box. I've been using ATI cards for the past few years for gaming, and they seem to work great.

Thanks
MM

I love them for gaming (BF2, GuildWars, JO:TR, JO:E, CS-S, HL2) are demanding games and I've always had better luck with ATI cards then the Nvidia cards. But that was ATI specialty for quite awhile. Just hope there big jump into the TV tuners doesn't hurt there gaming line of cards. And free can't be beat unless its useless to you. You could try a Video switch with RF output.