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[fidelio]

PREFACE:
I have recently upgraded to MC13, and am VERY pleased with the new features! I LOVE how MC grew in functionality over time, here some samples. Thanks to the cover art - Internet connection, now finally the biggest portion of my 4300 songs (most of them FLAC) got cover art. THANK YOU that also FLAC is supported as standard nowadays, after some treshhold some years ago...
About 5 yrs ago I started my own HTPC (myhtpc), but it was just too much maintenance work ( at that time also EPG was running).
MC survived and is today my core program for music and pictures due to its superior music support and data base functionality. I am also exporting pictures from MC to a Menalto gallery.
MY REQUEST:
Now I would like to try to use MC13 also for TV and EPG purpose.
Restriction: I do not have a TV card yet. Today I still use an external satellite set-top box directly connected to a TV, and watch both German and UK channels.
Would  be great if someone could guide me in setting this up:
1) which TV card /stick for DVB-S does MC13 support and is a good choice? (sold in Europe?) PCI Express or USB desired. HDTV supported?
2) I have tried to get the EPG running via MC2XML, but the channel list in MC is empty (naturally due to missing TV card??). How could I manually define a channel list I am interested in, and then read the EPG via xmltv, w/o TV card? This would be already good to achieve.
3) is it possible to run several mc2xml readings with different options, because I would like to combine the German and UK stations in one EPG listing in MC13.

A great adorer of MediaCenter!

[JimH]

Thanks for the kind words.  I've had good luck with Pinnacle USB sticks.  There is a list of other supported TV cards on the TV board here.

For the EPG, try a google search for a source of XMLTV.

[Yaobing]

1) which TV card /stick for DVB-S does MC13 support and is a good choice? (sold in Europe?) PCI Express or USB desired. HDTV supported?

Sorry, for now DVB-S is not yet supported. Over-the-air HDTV  (DVB-T for you) is supported. See Jim's response for what cards we support. I hope other users in Europe can give you more specific suggestions.

2) I have tried to get the EPG running via MC2XML, but the channel list in MC is empty (naturally due to missing TV card??). How could I manually define a channel list I am interested in, and then read the EPG via xmltv, w/o TV card? This would be already good to achieve.

It is not likely to be able to do anything without a TV card.

[Rutger64]

Hi Fidelio,

Not sure about which HDTV card, but wanted to share someting anyway, I had a Hauppauge PVR150 (x26) for my Vista Home Premium MCE.
My card burned through, I think, could not receive any channnels one day, tried everything, but gave up. Left it for about 6 months but I recently upgraded Nero to Version 9 and JRiver to MC13 and I thought I'd give watching TV on my PC another go, but did not want to spend a fortune on a new TV-card.

I came across the AverTV Super 007. TV+FM, remote control included (direct cable to outlet on back of tv card). Tried to install today, no luck in Vista yet with the AVERTV 6 program that came with it. Installed upgrade from their website, no luck, tried Nero 9 live, all no luck. Then I tried MC13. It scanned my analog channels no problem, something I never managed with my old Hauppauge card (which I used in MCE). Tagging/renaming channels is easy in MC13 and, and this I thought was funny, I installed UUIRT (USB UIRT) remote plug-in from the JRiver website as it occurred to me I still had my old USB remote from the Hauppauge Card, and guess what, it works! I have volume control, channels up and down, even the record button. Check out the AverTV website in your country to see if they have a model that works for HDTV. My analog card cost Euro 34.

I did a quick Google and I saw two interesting candidates for your wishes:

External:
AverMedia AverTV DVB-T Volar X [A815] for under Euro 30. This plays digital HD TV only, has a remote and is MCE compatible. This model plays MPEG2 HD channels and H.264 HD channels, it records as .mpg and .mp4 and has timeshift. Supports both EPG and DVB-T. I've not had experience with external TV card via USB, so I'll leave the reviews to others.

Internal:
Asus comes with the My Cinema-EHD2-100/PT/FM/AV/RC Dual Hybrid TV CARD: PCI-Express x1 interface; simultanious digital DVB-T and Analog (PAL) playback and recording;  Mpeg2 encoder;  Picture Beside Picture (PBP) funcationality; FM Radio. Not sure what the price is.

Both DVB-T, not DVB-S, though.

For DVB-S

FireDTV: see this page:
http://www.digital-everywhere.com/en/alcms/index.php?sid=1190324464

do not know the price but it looks like this machine can play everything that you want

Hope this helps. Good luck on finding the right card.

[fidelio]

Thanks guys for your quick answers and help,

but for me only DVB-S is an interesting solution, due to limited receiption of channels via DVB-T here.

I will wait to buy a TV card until DVB-S is supported in MC13... until then I'd be very satisfied if I can manually define my TV stations without TV card and conveniently read the EPG - just as an electronic program guide. (small hint = feature request...)

Maybe there is someone else out there who could find this useful?