Ok - I have a sky box and a pc Im turning into a media center, I have an analogue card to get the sky box to talk to the MCE, but I only have 1 set top box as having another is too expensive, what can I do about having a scond crd in the system

Ideally Id have a digital card in there but MCE doesnt handle dual systems does it - so one card can be dedicated to SKY and the other dedicated to DIGITAL.

However, can I have a 2nd analogue card control a freeview box???

Any comments from ppl running a SKY setup - all this technology for just the ability to record 1 station and not watch something else is depressing.

Thanks

I'm in the US and not completely up to what you can and can't do with the UK media cetner.

Last I heard it was 1 provider only.  you can have digital but your going to give up sky.  you can have sky but for 2 tuners, its going to be 2 skys.

In the us its similar, we can't mix providers either.  We just get lucky that our digital tv (hdtv) can work at the same time but its only with an antenna.  I suspect if the uk version did this you would be happy :)

i thought so - however i was wondering that as the sky box is hooked up through the analogue card its an analogue link with MCE controlling the box - could the second card not be hooked up to a digital freeview box with the same analogue link, with MCE controlling that box aswell.

This means ur running an analogue system and not a digital setup as both sources are coming in via composite feeds and not a digital source like a freeview DVBt card

The problem is the channel mapping.  MCE sees all analog tuners as 1 guide source with the same channels.  it thinks everything can be recorded on every tuner.