TBS 6982 Dual Satellite HD Low-profile PCIe TV Tuner Card DVB-S2

On its own the card would score 5*but what lets it down is the bundled software. Only DVB Dream works without crashing (on my W7 64 bit PC) but it constantly annoys with nags to buy the full product at $49.You can use the card with Windows Media Centre but Microsoft's support is woeful. The downloaded transponder list is way out of date meaning many channels do not appear. Also the DVBS2 standard for high definition is not supported. Fortunately Hauppauge makes a patch to fix this but you shouldn't have to go to another manufacturer. You can add the missing channels manually by looking up the frequencies, symbol rates &polarity and then doing a transponder scan. I've added about 70 in this way.If you only wish to watch a limited number of channels and have the time and ability to set them up then Windows Media Centre is fine. If you want to explore all broadcasts from a given satellite and quickly switch between them then you really need a product like the full version of DVB Dream. I downloaded the 30 day trial and a recent transponder list in the form of an exe file. It all works brilliantly but I'm not sure I'm going to shell out $49 dollars having already spent £100 on the card. I really should come bundled with some decent software.If you do buy the card make sure you download and install the latest drivers from the TBS website.

Good image quality from slimline card - HD image is pretty good. 2 tuners gives flexibility to record one programme whilst viewing another. In common with all PC tuner cards, it need a good strong signal feed. Windows Media Centre tends to 'lose' the tuner drivers sometimes, but that is not a problem with the card - Windows does the same trick with several different tuner cards. The card is supplied with TV viewing software, but I just stick with WMC and reload the drivers as required.