I am in the process of planning my "whole house" HTPC setup using Windows 7 Ultimate, Ceton 4-tuner card(s) and Xbox 360s as extenders.
I have a spare Dell PowerEdge T300 server with a few TBs of drive space, quad-core processor and 8gb of memory, so I'm thinking that this would make a good, central "capture" machine. I'm starting off with a single 4-tuner Ceton card, but if things go well I'll be adding another (or a HDHomeRun Prime).
I already have an Xbox 360 at each of my TVs, so that part is covered.
My question is... If I don't plan to have my HTPC connected to a TV (the 360s will handle that), do I need any upgraded videocard and/or a soundcard in my HTPC just to capture TV shows?
Basically, I'd like my MC7 PC to run as a headless media server in the basement and use the Xboxes for all the actual TV interaction.