I am posting this in the General board in case someone misses this one.
Here is the situation:
I am in search of computer, preferably a laptop, to turn into a media center. I already have a fairly new desktop, but we want to give it to our granddaughter, and from what I understand, this type of configuration requires enough power to support the application.
As I said, I do want a laptop, because of the mobility and dual purpose (when I am not using it as a MC, it is for work/play.) There are several that meet my specifications, but the area of my focus centers on the Video Capture hardware. I have seen some USB-connected devices, but I have narrowed it just to those which support cable/satellite input.
It has been implied that I do need Windows Media Center Edition, which comes with Vista -- I am trying to avoid it like the plague -- or I would need to find something that works on XP -- I don't really want to start messing with Linux at this stage -- so the question is:
Does anyone out there in WAMAW land have experience in this environment, and if so, would you please share it with me?
Many thanks.