PCs ARE SLOWLY creeping into every room of the house, particularly the living room, where home-theater PCs (HTPCs) have become popular among enthusiasts seeking to integrate multiple audiovisual devices into a single system. Personal video recording (PVR) features have also become an increasingly popular feature for HTPCs, a trend that has not gone unnoticed. Microsoft recently eased licensing restrictions on its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system to allow any system builder to purchase the OS. However, Media Center Edition still has strict video requirements. To take full advantage of MCE’s features, a system requires a TV tuner with hardware MPEG2 encoding and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics card.
Hardware MPEG2 TV Tuner Roundup

Tech Report has taken a look at three MPEG2 TV Tuner cards, one from ATI, one from NVIDIA and one from Hauppauge. Take a look!