It's unfortunate that alot of the third party Software DVR's don't work very well.
I have a Hauppauge PVR-150 , and the best app is Hauppauges WinTV 7. I have not tried Chris-TV in 7, but I have tried it in the past and didn't really like it.
I have tried just about all of them (GBPVR, Beyond TV, SageTV, some others) and found a problem with all of them.
I am really not too keen on WinTV 7 either,, WinTV 2000 was the best,,, but doens't run in 7.
I am really looking for something like WinTV 2000, where I can start a recoring then tetll it when to stop,,, or setup a batch file like WinTV 2000 that I can just double click and have it start with all my parameters already in place. That was awesome, but haven't been able to find a good 7 replacement.
Most of the PVR software is pretty inflexible,, they all want to mimic Media Center or Tivo. That's fine, but should have more flexibitly to be used as a one touch record without having to setup schedules and then try to figure out how to hit the times,, anyway, they are just a pain in the ass for how I want to use them.
The problem with Windows Media Center is, it doesn't record direct to MPG.
I don't want to have to convert it and all that junk.