Question about WinTV 500 MCE (or any dual tuner card)

[arnabbiswas]

Hi,

I was considering to buy the WinTV 500 because I have only one free PCI slot and I wanted the ability to record two shows simultaneously. My hookup will be as follows:

Wall outlet -> Cable TV Set Top Box -> WinTV 500 card

My question is that since my cable STB can output only one channel at a time and I will be having only one line going into the TV tuner card, how would the TV tuner be able to tune to two channels simultaneously? I understand that the WinTV 500 has an internal splitter, but would that allow it to tune to 2 different channels when the STB outputs just one? Or would I need a different setup in order to enable the WinTV 500 to tune to 2 channels simultaneously?

Also, I don’t have Windows MCE. I shall be using XP, GBPVR and a USB-UIRT to change channels. Will this be ok? I was asking since the card says MCE and I was wondering if MCE was required for it to operate correctly?

[arnabbiswas]

Hi turajb,

Thanks for your reply. So I gather that for every extra tuner card, we need to split the cable one more time. In that case it may not really make sense to have more than 2-3 tuners since you don’t want to split the input too many times.

Though I will be missing some premier channels, I wont go for an extra cable box since I want to avoid the extra monthly fees. This should at least let me record one analog channel (from wall outlet after splitting) and another channel of any type (from STB) simultaneously. It was very nice of you to let me know my options about this.

BTW, your pvr-build site was very helpful and timely. I shall be referring to it while building mine.

[Ted the Penguin]

I know for a fact that you can get 9 way cable splitters, I think our basement has 3 of them, every room in the house is wired for cable, but when you split the signal that much you run into all kinds of problems with return signals and the like as they get lost in the splitters and cant be amplified, (so the cable company tells us when we cant get a STB to work in some rooms of the house)