I’ve recently left ntl:Telewest and sometime soon I’m going to lose my free Digital TV service, so I had a quick look at the latest offers from ntl:Telewest and Sky to see who was offering the best deal.

I was on the verge of plumping for ntl:Telewest because it was cheaper, even though Sky has a better HD offering but then I thought about how much broadcast TV I watch, and I realised that most of the content I watch these days I get from online sources. I also found it hard to justify paying an additional subscription for a PVR (TVDrive or Sky+) that can only be used in one room, has limited storage and also poor functionality compared to my Media Center PC.

So rather than opting for a subscription service I decided to go for Freeview, which despite being free has a respectable channel line-up and would also allow me to make full use of XP Media Center’s PVR capabilities and to share live and recorded material to every room in my flat via my Xbox 360 and Xbox extenders.

I had two options for getting the Freeview signal to my PC:

1. Buy a Freeview set-top box and plug it into my existing Sapphire Theater 550 PRO Theatrix TV Card which features the highly-rated ATI Theater 500 PRO Chip
2. Replace my 550 PRO card which is analogue with a digital card capable of handling the Freeview signal directly

I decided to go for option 2 on the basis that I think a better picture will be achieved if the signal goes direct to the card, rather than the card decoding a signal which has already been processed by a separate set-top box. I also went for option 2 as DVB-T cards are now available with 2 digital tuners, allowing one program to be watched whilst a second is recorded. To achieve this with option 1 would require two set-top boxes and I hate clutter.

I originally ordered a TerraTec Cinergy 2400i card as it had received some good reviews and I liked the fact that it used a PCI x1 slot, which would free up a PCI slot in my machine for future expansion. However, I couldn’t get it to work. TerraTec said that the card was faulty and recommended exchanging it, but I decided to get a full refund as I have a sneaky feeling that the problem was being caused by my dodgy A8R-MVP motherboard and not the card.
I decided a PCI TV card was required and luckily I found the new Hauppauge Nova-T 500 MCE TV Card which has two tuners built in. The card arrived yesterday and installation was a doddle. The card has a very small form factor which is nice as I’ve had to put it next to my monster X1900XT card which needs all the airflow it can get to stay cool.

Installing the drivers went without a hitch upon bootup, although it took a while as about 6 had to be installed. Setting up the card within Media Center couldn’t have been easier. Both tuners were detected first-time and the channel scan picked up all the Freeview Digital TV and Radio channels.

Hauppauge claim that the card includes their latest sensitive DVB-T tuners and I have to agree. The picture quality has really blown me away. It is far better than the quality I was receiving via my Telewest/550 PRO combo, and is nearly as good as the picture I get from connecting a cable box directly to my TV. It is by far the best picture I’ve seen from a TV card and I’ve been through a few (Hauppauge PVR150 and 550 PRO).

If you’re in the market for a Digital TV card then this is definitely the one to get. If you’re a Telewest TVDrive or Sky+ subscriber, it’s definitely time to move over to XP Media Center or Windows Vista next year and stop wasting money on PVRs with limited functionality and storage.

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