Best internal TV card for ICE TV to allow on/off switching

[wappinghigh]

I've been told by a computer guy that in order to use ICE TV properly a TV card with "on/off" switching is necessary.
I assume this allows the HTPC to be switched on in order to start recording.
He says such cards need MPEG2/4 encoding for this function.

Is this correct?
Is what he is saying a sort of an "awake from standby"?
The Hauppauge HVR 2200 MCE has MPEG 2....so is this card OK with ICE TV EPG?
If not are there any other suggestions?

I dont really want to leave a PC on all the time.

[cam]

I don't really know how Win7 wakes up for recordings (TV card vs. some other reason).  It just does.  :-)

I'm using Win7 at home with 2x Haupague 2200 tuners.  I used MCE Standby Tool to tweak my sleep settings.  That works fine for me: the PC sleeps (S3) when its not busy, and wakes up to record programs, then goes back to sleep.

Have a look at the XP Media Centre forum.  That's an Australian forum.  The Haupague cards seem to be held in good esteem over there.

Cam

[bodogbodog]

Have a look at the XP Media Centre forum

The forum can be found here @ http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/

[dgaust]

Your computer guy has no idea what he's talking about.

There are a few cards that support turning your PC on from a full off position. This function is generally only supported by the software that comes with the card and not Windows Media Centre. MythTV does support setting wakeup alarms that will wake a PC from power off, but that's dependant on hardware support and doesn't work for everyone.

Mpeg-2/4 encoding plays no part in the playback of the digital signal (only analogue).

You can set your PC to either use Standby, or Hibernate (S3 or S4) and Mediacentre will wake itself for a recording. This function does not depend on the type of tuner card you have.