Harmonies are THE key to making complicated AV setups easy to use. When one of those is perfectly programmed even my dogs can easily switch between video sources without even knowing what they are doing. The Harmony Smart Control is on sale now at Best Buy: The solution is a well programed Logitech Harmony remote that makes switching inputs an effortless excise thanks to macro buttons. If the whole problem is someone in your life (wife, kids) has problem handling the inputs the solution is NOT to run everything through a single source. With that said, no offense but jumping through all these hoops just to avoid switching inputs is not a great idea. If you just want to archive stuff that the cable company DVR records something like a Hauppauge HD PVR can do that in a way that works with most cable boxes.ĥ. With that said, Windows Media Center is dying so I personally wouldn't really invest anything into cablecard tuners or a HTPC to do it, at least until some other solution for handling the DRM hits the market. Linux is best when all you want is to pick up OTA channels off the airwaves.Ĥ. The only solution with full cablecard DRM support is Windows Media Center. With that said, as mentioned cable boxes often come with DRM that can make it so that no Linux solution works. I think building the right HTPC correctly is step one.ģ. With that said, you probably don't need a graphics card (or ESPECIALLY a sound card) on a HTPC unless you game or you are SUPER picky about video quality. I much prefer network tuners like a HDHomerun.Ģ. Click to expand.A few thoughts (in order of caveat):ġ.

Linux media center pc cablecard