Dell desk/lap top with Media Centre & TV Tuner

Hi,

I'm looking to purhase either a desk or lap top with Windows Media Centre installed. One of the main features of Media Centre that I would like us is the ability to record TV (I don't want to use a PVR or DVD recorder); I have previously bought Dell PCs and would like to do so again as I think they are good value. However, having looking pretty extensivivly on the www.dell.ie website I cannot find either

1. a desk/lap top with an inbuilt TV tuner or
2. the option to buy the TV tuner as an accessory on www.dell.ie or
3. a recommendation on www.dell.ie on where to purhase a TV tuner

The only reference of relevance that I can find on www.dell.ie is for example:

"3 Media Center live TV functionality requires TV Tuner for PC and minimum desktop system requirements of 512MB RAM. May not be compatible with all cable systems and local broadcast signals. Recording TV in Media Center requires Internet connection for full functionality."

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have emailed Dell Support and will give them a call shortly but thought I might check here first. I know I can buy a TV tuner elsewhere but am a little worried that there might be compatibility issues if Dell are not currently selling their PCs with inbuilt tuners. Any thoughts?

Thanks & regards,
Mammysboy

Hi Mammysboy

I had the same problem and rang them to order.

Before you buy, ake sure that they tuner they supply is on the Microsoft Designed for MCE list (see Microsoft site) - Dell provided me with a tuner that functioned under XP but did not allow me to use the MCE TV functionality. This was when Dell had just started selling MCE in Ireland.

Also, I'd recommend a built in or USB stick tuner (if using a laptop) as the stand alone external one that I eventually bought does add to the clutter around the TV.

Highly recommned MCE for TV. Good luck.

Lanky

lanky said:

Also, I'd recommend a built in or USB stick tuner (if using a laptop) as the stand alone external one that I eventually bought does add to the clutter around the TV.

Click to expand...

You might also want to consider a tuner/capture card/device with hardware MPEG4/DivX etc encoding built in rather than depending on the host processor to do this job. Videohelp.com is a great site on the wider issues involved here.

Many thanks for the replies. I contacted Dell Support by email and they refered me to a Dublin number to order the TV card which I have yet to do. That is exceptionally bad that they actually could recommend a non MCE compatibile tuner - thanks for the warning.

I've decided to get the E520 desktop and looking for MCE recommend tuners on Microsoft's site I found the following:

[broken link removed]

There only seems to be 8 recmmended Tuners, none of which seem to support the MPEG4 format mentioned by Clubman. Surely there others...anyway I'll see what Dell say when I call.

Just another couple of questions if people don't mind...anyone been able to setup recording of NTL digital with a MCE PC? Is this relatively straightforward and is the quallity of recording good? How comparible is it to viewing a DVD say?

Thanks again,
MB