We're trying out assorted hardware on Vista as and when we get the chance, to check out the state of drivers. It's especially fun for stuff that doesn't have any Vista compatible stickers on the box, such as Hauppauge's dual DVB-T PCI TV tuner, the WinTV Nova-T 500. This was released in the latter half of 2006.

The Nova-T 500 gets the thumbs-up, but with a couple of provisos. Make sure you first download the 3.3c version of the driver CD (30MB) - earlier versions, like the 2.5 WHQL version supplied with our model, don't have Vista support, although we found that Vista Ultimate will install them - it was only when we tried to unsuccessfully scan for channels we realised something wasn't right. This could confuse new owners if they've bought an old-stock retail box.

Running the supplied Hwclear utility to get rid of the old drivers, rebooting and pointing Vista at the newly-downloaded drivers (they're in the /Drivers directory in the zip file) sorted everything out perfectly, apart from the fact that the drivers are still digitally unsigned and not WHQL certified.  Note also that there are no Vista 64-bit drivers available yet.

Both tuners and the infrared remote control dongle were recognised by Vista Media Center and are working flawlessly. The remote control itself also works fine. We did try leaving our old Twinhan DVB-T card installed to see what would happen, but Media Center won't let you use more than two tuners simultaneously.

We haven't tried Hauppauge's own WinTV2000 software yet, but it's supposed to work in Vista too. We'll post an update when we get round to installing it.

UPDATE 7 Feb: Hauppauge's PR has informed us that there is a beta 64-bit Vista driver available for the Nova-T 500. Also, there is an old and complicated MCE hack to allow more than two tuners, but we haven't tried it in Vista yet.