New to gbpvr - video capture hardware

[stanglish]

Hi everyone and thanks to the maker & developers of gbpvr for producing this software.

Basically I'm after help in building a machine for my uncle to be used in conjunction with this software. He want to use it for capturing & recording the output he gets from a freeview set top box and for its other media purposes. We don't plan to use a freeview USB/PCI card in the setup.

The basic spec of the system is fine (AMD64 3200, 1gb ram 250gb sata) but I could do with some help in speccing a very cheap video card option. Am i best buying a card with VIVO (if so which is the best card?) or buying an external/pci capture device to work alongside a cheap video card? Any help would be much appreciated. P.S. The graphics card will be PCI-E, not the agp standard.

[Koenie]

I would go with a Hauppauge PVR 150 (not the slightly cheaper MCE version) and use its IR blaster for the channel changing.

[stanglish]

Ok, cheers for the input. I don't have lots of knowledge in this particular hardware field but I presume that the best way to capture external sources these days is with a combined tv/capture card like the 150?

[stanglish]

On the subject of channel changing I plan to use a MS Media Centre remote kit. Doesn't this also do IR blasting? Either that or I really don't mind sorting the box out manually. I just need a good way of capturing what comes out of it