XP MCE with any tuner card?

[X-Ecutioner]

I have an old ATI Rage 128 Pro tv tuner. I was wondering if Windows XP Media Center Edition will recognize my tuner card and use it for the TV feature. Anyone know if it will work?

[arablizzard2413]

Windows XP Media Center Edition only works with a few newer cards, so it is very unlikely your card will work. (it might if someone made hacked drivers for it but it still might not)

Edit:

You're not trying to BUILD a Windows XP Media Center Edition computer are you?

[X-Ecutioner]

Haha nope. I makin a plexi-glass case for my cousin's xbox and he is giving me his old xbox case and I am gonna try and shove my other computer in his xbox case. I was just wondering if it was possible. I thought I saw a copy of MCE online for sale so i was just wondering.

[disgraceful33]

wait......

hypothetically, if i had a copy of windows xp mce, it's not possible to build a pc to use it?

[X-Ecutioner]

It is. Its just that MCE has built-in software for watchin tv and stuff. Apparently the software only works with certain hardware tuners. other than that....I assume thats the only difference I think.

[arablizzard2413]

Yes it is possible to make a MCE machine, but from a Microsoft standpoint you can't. The only legal ways to get MCE is from a MSDN subscription (but you can't keep it, it's for testing purposes only) or buying a new computer that has it already installed. There are only a few tv turner/capture cards that have working *official* drivers that work with MCE, all of which can be purchased from New Egg along with a generic MCE remote. I wouldn't trust a online retailer selling MCE though (since they really aren't supposed to sell them anyway). In reality Media Center is a program running ontop of Windows XP Professional, you don't really need it (it's cheaper if you don't get it) since most tv tuner/capture cards come with their own software that does the same thing.