New to tv tuners, Need help deciding

[illogical06]

I've decided to expand my pc from just gaming to also a HTPC. I here Hauppage has some high quality products so i'm thinking of getting either this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116626

or this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116606

From what i can tell, the only real difference is that the second one has a built in video decoder(def. plus), fm-tuner(who cares), and s-video and composite video-in. Also, the first one doesnt have audio-in.

My new pc coming in is basically the same as the one in sig so is not having the video decoder going to have much of an effect on my pc?

I'm a noob to this so i would like to know if its worth it to spend the extra cash for the higher model. I also find audio quality to be very important but i'm not sure if either card matters assuming i can use my Audigy sound card newayz.

I'm also not sure if not having the s-video/composite in will make much of a difference either.

EDIT I just saw this also...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116620

It mentions pausing tv vivo style, but i assumed the others can do this as well...i'm confused now.

I dont mind that much about paying more as long as its justified.

[juliendogg]

the pvr is the better of the 3. the other are mostly just for displaying tv, not capture. the pvr will capture tv to digital file. I would recommend the pvr 150/250. Leadtek has a nice offering as well, for the sub $100 range.

J.

[johnny5c]

I tried a few cards before I ended up with the PVR 350. I'm running it with Beyond TV and am very happy with it. The hardware encoding is great because it frees up you CPU and the remote is easy to use. The software that comes with the PVR cards is fine for most stuff but some of the 3rd party programs are better IMO.

[telexen]

I have both a PVR 250 and a PVR 150MCE running on a linux box with MythTV and I'm very happy with both of them...I had trouble getting either to work with anything in Windows though.

[Bal`thzar]

ok before you start buying stuff you really should take a look more closly at what you want to do.

but that being said

the PVR350 and the 500 are your best bet the 500 had dual tuners thought the 350 quality is better. both are compatible with Windows Media Center Edition.

there are other alternatives to media center edition but you also have to look at a remote and PVR software. it sounds more like you want to slap a tuner card into a PC and call it a HTPC. there are some good threads and forums on HTPC do a bit of research on it.

I have a pretty rockin HTPC and I don't even bother with a TV tuner card because my cable HD-DVR does a much better job than any TV tuner card can and couple it with the fact that tuner cards are only going to get analog channels up to 125 means the expense of them is really ridiculous. but thats just me.