As far as software, I'd suggest to stay away from Windows Media Center. It may be ok for you, but I've had problems with it. The "Media Center" component locks in my USB 2.0 tuner card(crappy no name dell component, what was I thinking??) and won't release it to other software no matter what programs I shut down. This wouldnt be a big deal but I really wanted to play video games through the vid inputs. MCE doesn't allow this. It only lets you setup "set top boxes" through the vid inputs. You could try to setup a ps2 or whatever, but you cant turn off the delay(it's constantly recording incase you want to pause live tv and whatnot.)
I'm going to try my card on XP pro with some other software, I'll post some results if anyone is interested.
