My husband and I have a Tivo, with Comcast digital starter but it doesn't have enough storage. We were thinking about getting an external drive, but we've read enough to know that that may not be the best thing. We have a PC sitting next to our television and receiver, so what about getting a tuner card for the PC, and installing Windows Media Center on the PC? I think we can just split the cable between the Tivo and get all the local channels without a cablecard. And most of what we watch is the local channels anyway.

My questions are about whether we are going to lose anything by doing this instead of just adding more storage to the Tivo. How does a PC send HD to the television? Does the tuner card have HD outputs? Or do I need a new video output card? Also: How does a PC send 5.1 surround sound to the receiver?

You will be more likely to get the help and answers you seek if you post your questions in one of the dedicated TiVo threads based on your model. If you have the TiVo HD, here is a link to it's official thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11126048#post11126048) where all the discussion goes on. The FAQ may have your information already. It is kept current.

The Tivo forum doesn't know much about what I asked about in the first paragraph, using a PC as a DVR.

The Tivo forum doesn't know much about what I asked about in the first paragraph, using a PC as a DVR.You can easily add a 500GB (+71 HD hours) or a 1TB (+144 HD hours) to your existing TivoHD with a "plug and play" external drive. Alternatively, you could follow the instructions in that thread to upgrade the TiVo's internal hard drive. For $100, you can increase the TiVo's capacity to 157 HD hours, and doing so would involve far less effort than setting up a HTPC.

If you only want to record the HD locals, then you can certainly add a QAM dual-tuner device to your computer like the HD Homerun (http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun). That would allow you to record two different HD locals at once to your computer's hard drive. Your PC would need to have a sufficiently fast processor and/or the appropriate graphics card to ensure high-quality playback to your TV. Tuner cards do not have HD output; your PC would connect to your TV via the DVI/HDMI connector on the graphics card. Your computer would also need a sound card with spdif or optical output for your receiver, if it does not have that capability built-in.

AVS has an entire forum dedicated to HTPCs (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26). Just make sure you do enough reading to know what you are getting yourself into. You should not expect a PC to be as simple as a TiVo for recording and playback.