Any help appreciated on this one (forgive the sometimes non technical speak)!

I am going to replace my old HP media centre for a newer uptodate model and have a q on the connection of sky digital box. 

I currently connect the box to the pc via a scart to rca (red/white/yellow??) on the pc.  (The HP has a single tv card, and although I plug a coax aerial into this, I don't think this signal gets used at all. )

With the new machine, I can opt for a Hauppauge Dual DVB-T PCI TV Tuner card, as I would like to connect two Sky digital boxes to my pc (yep, and pay for a multi room account), so that I can simulate Sky+. 

However, from the pictures I see of these dual tv cards, it's just two aerial socket inputs on the back of the card.

1.  does this mean that I have to connect the two sky boxes to the pc via coax leads, and isn't that going to be poor quality and

2. am I better getting two lots of rca inputs (red/white/yellow?)  on the back of the pc - in which case - why do I need a TV card at all?

Sound a bit stupid asking all of this, but want to get it kind of right!!

Many thanks to whoever can help out.

Chris

Don't go for the Hauppauge Dual DVB-T tuner card, that is not suitable for your scenerio

If you have the option, go for two Hauppauge PVR-150MCE's or a Hauppauge PVR500MCE these are well supported.  I currently use two PVR150's in your exact same setup.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.asp?CatID=53&Category=Multimedia%2FTV&ThumbNails=Yes&FilterKeywords=&FilterMinPrice=&FilterMaxPrice=&FilterCategories=275&FilterManufacturers=20&OrderBy=1

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Steve
Ancient Chinese IT proverb - Lack of planning on your part does not justify panic on mine

Hi, thanks for a response.  Sounds stupid, but can I ask how you connect your sky box to your cards?  Have looked at a picture of the PVR500MCE, and it has

FM In, TV In, S-vid In, Comp In, and a red plug and white plug....

Am I missing something here (or prob not quite getting it, as usual!)

Thanks

No worries, I have two PVR150 cards with two Sky boxes connected to each, the first Sky box is connect to the tuner card with an s-video connector for the video and two phono cables for the audio.

The second is connected to the tuner card via 3 phono cables, 1 for the video (yellow colour) and two again for the audio.

I have not used a PVR500 before but the picture just shows one of each type of video connector - s-video and composite, it looks like you need to purchase an AV header and cable for more inputs according to Hauppauge's specs -

WinTV-PVR-500 MCE includes:
	Dual Analouge TV tuners, each with a Nicam stereo decoder.
	Dual high quality MPEG2 video and audio encoders based on the Conexant -416 MPEG encoder
	One back panel composite/s-video plus stereo audio inputs to connect to cable or satellite set top boxes
	Two on-board A/V headers, to connect to two more A/V sources (A/V cable set not included)
	One FM radio receiver

 

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Steve
Ancient Chinese IT proverb - Lack of planning on your part does not justify panic on mine

Many thanks for that....still not 100%, but getting there!!  I guess the av 'header' requires some kind of adapter to put two sets into one.... will do some more investigation.

Feeling quite pleased with myself...

http://registration.hauppauge.com/webstore/accessories2.asp?product=av_cable

http://registration.hauppauge.com/webstore/images/pvr500_av_cable.jpg

What a lot of hassle, go and buy two PVR-150's instead

On a serious note, Hauppauge don't make any PCI-E cards (although they do USB) and on some motherboards PCI sockets are lacking, so check what sockets your new pc has before commiting.

 

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Steve
Ancient Chinese IT proverb - Lack of planning on your part does not justify panic on mine