3×MVP served by 2×PVR-500MCE and 2×NOVA-S

[JohnSawyer]

Hello. I've visited this website last year when I was thinking about a new entertainment centre in my new house. We are moving now within two months. There has been an incredible amount of change during past year in this area.

I'd like to set up a system with 3 MediaMVPs and a computer-server in the cellar. I've been browing this forum for the past two hours, but I still didn't find an answer which tuner cards to buy that would work well with GB-PVR.

I guess I'll go with Hauppauge. But here comes the confusion:
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-150 or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-150MCE or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-250 or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-250MCE or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-350 or
- 2 × WinTV-PVR-500MCE
+

- 1-2 × WinTV-NOVA-CI-S pci (WinTV-NEXUS-S doesn't work does it?)

I have Windows 2003 SP1 on my server, if that's of any relevance. 4 PCI slots free.

The analog TV cards have pretty much the same feature set: I don't need the FM radio and I'd control the cards with MVP, so I guess I wouldn't need each card's separate remote (if choosing 500MCE). Or are there any benefits using native IR remote controllers (though they would be in different floor than the computer), and even if they did work how would each remote controller know which of 2 tuners in 2×150 setup to control?

I'd prefer 2 × WinTV-NOVA-CI-S + 2 × WinTV-PVR-500MCE controlled by 3 × MediaMVP, the question to you is whether it would work.

[sub]

I guess I'll go with Hauppauge. But here comes the confusion:
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-150 or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-150MCE or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-250 or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-250MCE or
- 3 × WinTV-PVR-350 or
- 2 × WinTV-PVR-500MCE

Any of the above should be ok.

- 1-2 × WinTV-NOVA-S pci (WinTV-NEXUS-S doesn't work does it? but it does support some decoder cards)

I've not tried two DVB devices in my machine, but one NOVA-S should be OK, two *may* be OK. WinTV Nexus-S is not supported because Hauppauge have not release BDA drivers.

If you're using MVPs for viewing, then you're unlikely to need cards with IR hardware. Just so you know though, the Hauppauge IR software is only supported on *one* device. So if you have multiple devices with IR hardware installed, it'll only function on one device.