[justcor]

I am looking at a new 503 and I'm wondering if I should stick with the standard video card or go with a TVP-1000 or TVP-1000+ which sounds like it should be available soon. Any thoughts?




Cheers,

Cory

 

[nospam_online]

I recently got a 503cmx. I'm sticking with the 5002 for now. I mainly watch DVD's now and only watch a handle of shows on directv. In the fall, I may be switching to dishnet because they have nationwide HD CBS for SEC football (there's no HD CBS stations in my area yet). So for me I don't need a TVP just yet.


It really depends on your veiwing habits.

 

[Bill Gehring]

Depends on what you're buying the card for.


If you just want to tune regular NTSC signals, a VCR player will do the job with the PDA 5002 card.


If you want to tune ATSC (HiDef TV) depends on what your source is - OTA, cable, satellite. You may need a cable tuner or satellite tuner for those sources so the Aurora 1000+ would only function as an OTA ATSC tuner then.


If you're worried about HDCP, I would wait until that becomes a "real" threat to your viewing sources, before you upgrade the DVI port.


Long answer short - the PDA 5002 card may be just fine for your current sources.


Example: In my case, using the display inputs and the 5002 inputs -


Input 1 is an HTPC feeding OTA HiDef TV with a 75 foot VGA cable.

Input 2 is a progressive scan DVD player with component (RCA to BNC adapters)

Input 3 is a VCR feeding NTSC and tape with an s video cable


An alternative would be to hook the VCR up to Input 4 with a composite cable.

 

[djs]

If the PDA5002 comes bundled with the 503, you might as well stick with that. Otherwise, consider the Aurora A303 if you don't need the other goodies the TVP-1000+ offers. The A303 is similar to the 5002, except it has DVI/HDCP & a better scaler.