Tuner Card

This is the first component (and only one so far) that I bought. I went with the Compro DVB-T300 for $129 from the computerfair. It met all of my requirements as far as timeshifting, schedule recording, handheld remote etc were concerned, plus I’d read somewhere that it had no problems working in Australia (friends of mine had had issues with cards not picking up certain channels etc...).

This card is also a low form factor (skinny), which means that if I end up getting a micro-ATX case at some stage down the track, there won’t be any issues with size.

It comes with a remote which works out of the box with the Compro TV and DVD software, which is cool. I have since realised that not all remotes were created equal. Basically there is something called a “MCE remote” which is a remote that conforms to MS’ remote spec’s and will work straight away with MCE. A few other packages support the MCE remote aswell, including MedaiPortal.

My remote is not a MCE remote. However, apparently there is a little piece of software out there (HIP something?) that will help me map my remote buttons to keyboard strokes, which will match up to the fully assignable hotkeys in MP. I’ll tackle that later...