BeyondTV3 $34.95 after rebate

TreeTop:

Your timing is perfect. My friend is thinking about building a PC for his 5 yr old daughter and would also like it to be her TV (bedroom space very limited). The PC would have a DVD player also.

Since she needs basic PC capability he wants to go with WinXP vs. something like Media Center Edition.

I told him maybe put Sage TV or Beyond TV on it also and get a Hauppauge PVR-150 card. This way she will be able to watch her DVD's and also be able to record her favorite shows.

Money is sort of an issue also, so this was another reason I was thinking about this.

What are your views on Beyond TV and Sage TV?

Thanks,

BSR
 
BraveSirRobbin said:
Since she needs basic PC capability he wants to go with WinXP vs. something like Media Center Edition.
Nothing against Sage or Beyond (I have never touched them), but don't rule out MCE. Your comment implies that you lose the regular use of the PC by using MCE. My limited exposure to MCE shows that MCE behaves like an elaborate piece of application software. If you don't launch MCE, you just have a fairly regular XP Pro computer.

I guess I should also stop calling it MCE, it seems that the rest of the world calls it WMC (Windows Media Center).

I also heard some rumors today about the future of WMC:
  • WMC Extender will support HD "soon"
  • WMC will support HD cable "soon"
  • WMC will not support HD satellite "soon", but it will eventually.
I could not get a better definition of "soon". It almost seems like it may be an upgrade to WMC2005, rather than WMC2006.
 
MCE 2006 is going to have these features (bu using cablecard), but I was told by one of my MS source that they consider MCE 2006 an update, not a new version like MCE 2005, so that seems to match your story. I look forward to being able to record HD.
 
its software.

If you want to run the PS2 through a HTPC, you will need to get a VIVO card (not a TV capture card). Not sure about delay with the VIVO cards, but if there is any, it shoud be pretty small (Im guessing).

Another option is a S-video to vga converter. Most I've seen run a bit over $100, but I didn't really shop around.
 
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