Its been suggested due to the ability to dynamically configure the tuners as either NTSC or ATSC that the Vbox 164e is actually a "software encoder" based product. In either case I hope the Vbox 164e does indeed ship “sometime in September” because its an interesting and unique product,….that and the newly released ATI Theater 650 Pro based product line seems to be somewhat lackluster in MCE 2K5,….in fact the ATSC component doesn’t seem to work at all in MCE 2K5 or BeyondTV4:

http://hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=33519

 http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77340&page=13

Configuration with Windows XP MCE 2005 While running Windows XP MCE 2005's initial setup, we should note that the Theater 650 Pro's analog tuner was all that was detected. While the card does support DTV, Windows XP MCE 2005 did not detect this and behaved like a single analog tuner was installed. This appears to be intentional as the setup documentation simply states to run Live TV and makes no mention of both tuners being available in Windows XP MCE 2005's interface. To view DTV signal, the Catalyst Media Center software must be installed.

http://hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?page=4&articleid=851&cid=2

Its not software.  I don't have the link but the on avforums one of hte designers went over the card and its hardware.  Its just a card that has the ability to bypass the decoder for atsc signals.  mpeg2 encoders in bulk are only a few bucks, its not a big deal to put them on the cards.

accident:

Its not software.  I don't have the link but the on avforums one of hte designers went over the card and its hardware.  Its just a card that has the ability to bypass the decoder for atsc signals.  mpeg2 encoders in bulk are only a few bucks, its not a big deal to put them on the cards.

Linkage to that info on the avforums would be much appreciated if you have it.

The Vbox 164e is looking like one of my preferred choices for a number of reasons. I really hope it ships in September.

>Yep, no longer need to use the KRAM drivers and the link above is a little out of date, the 'current' encoder drivers do not require any changes once installed.

There seems to be some confusion here on this issue

There's a fundamental difference between using the Kram drivers and and ATI solution and (to me) it's a big one.

Both solutions allow a single instance of an HDTV Wonder as the only installed tuner card to work in MCE, however the Kram solution allows BOTH analog and digital tuners to be seen and operate in MCE where the ATI solution only allows EITHER the analog OR the digital tuner to be seen and operate in MCE.

Kram Drivers for MCE & HDTV Wonder
http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/krammcehdtv1.html
...
YOU CAN use one TV tuner for both analog and digital/HDTV under the Media Center Edition application, and it also works for Vista Beta 2 MCE.
...
What you will be able to do:

1) Watch HDTV/Digital TV and analog TV on your monitor using one TV card running under the MCE application. HDTV reception is over the air (OTA) only. Analog TV can be either OTA or via local cable.
...

accident:

Its not software.  I don't have the link but the on avforums one of hte designers went over the card and its hardware. ..

False. 

And Shimon was decidedly not a designer....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7276685&&#post7276685

...

The Cat's Eye 164e has software encoding and decoding for Analog/Digital TV.

dabl:

>Yep, no longer need to use the KRAM drivers and the link above is a little out of date, the 'current' encoder drivers do not require any changes once installed.