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TV tuner for "server" advice needed

post #1 of 2
Thread Starter 
Hi folks,

I'd like to do something that might sounds strange - or maybe not, you tell me.

Right now I run several devices for my home entertainment. A GoogleTV, a Roku and on both, I use Plex heavily. I'm coming from a full blown HTPC and i'd rather not go back to that. Having said that, I do find that I have a void to fill. I have no way to record TV via PVR / DVR type functionality. My GoogleTV nor Roku (obviously) will let me do that.

So, I was thinking. I do have a dedicated media server and I was wondering, does it sound reasonable to throw in something like a WinTV-HVR-2250 into my server, hook up my cable, and just record the TV that I want so that I can watch it via my various Plex clients later? If that sounds do-able, any thoughts on how well the Hauppauge PVR software that's included with the turner would work? I'm eyeing up the 2250 because being able to record two shows at the same time would be ideal.

Thoughts or additional advice would be greatly appreciated!
post #2 of 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by law086 View Post

Hi folks,

I'd like to do something that might sounds strange - or maybe not, you tell me.

Right now I run several devices for my home entertainment. A GoogleTV, a Roku and on both, I use Plex heavily. I'm coming from a full blown HTPC and i'd rather not go back to that. Having said that, I do find that I have a void to fill. I have no way to record TV via PVR / DVR type functionality. My GoogleTV nor Roku (obviously) will let me do that.

So, I was thinking. I do have a dedicated media server and I was wondering, does it sound reasonable to throw in something like a WinTV-HVR-2250 into my server, hook up my cable, and just record the TV that I want so that I can watch it via my various Plex clients later? If that sounds do-able, any thoughts on how well the Hauppauge PVR software that's included with the turner would work? I'm eyeing up the 2250 because being able to record two shows at the same time would be ideal.

Thoughts or additional advice would be greatly appreciated!

I experimented with the 2250 when I built my first home theater PC. It sucked. The tuning software it came with was less than useless. Most of my recordings had bad pixelation and blocking issues, channels would fade in and out or disappear altogether. I remember being elated that I did manage one decent recording.. an Austin city limits concert of the Dave Matthews Band. It was still pixelated in a few spots, and it took a gorgeous, crystal clear summer day to get it. A few months ago, I tried to re-purpose it to receive FM radio stations through windows media center, and it couldn't even do that. I threw it out.

I replaced the 2250 with a Ceton InfiniTV card (I was one of the early adopters that waited eight months for one of the first ones). It has since been installed in a Windows Home Server 2011 box. The four HD tuners are attached to each of two different media center PC's via network bridge. The system has worked very well for us. All of the recordings are done on the local HTPC's, but the episodes are archived to the server so they are viewable on anything with a screen in my house. My exclusive use of Windows Media Center is a choice of comfort and convenience. I know Windows 7 very well, and so does my family. I have never used Plex or Roku or any of the other "exotic" content streaming services, so I wouldn't know how to capture content from those products for playback.. but I do with Windows. It works, so I stick with it.
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