I believe you need your IR sensor to get TV on your computer with the media center, atlease I do.
I don't have a capper, I get mine straight through the media center (you need IR sensor for cable & Satellite as far as I know)
Did you upgrade or did you out right get a media center with a new computer ? I thought all media centers came with a TV tuner card
On the Media Center, you will have a window that will show whatever you are running. Movies on DVD, shows off of TV, pictures that you download or take yourself and so on
You can size that window to however small or big that you would like it to be. There are 2 ways to get caps that I know of.
1- go to
www.download.com and look up screen captures and download some of then and fool around with them to you find one that you like. Or there are some programs that you can get that has screen captures with them. Coral has a nice one, but the price can make one
2- You can also get caps by using something like PowerDVD 6. That will take you out of the media center and play your show on the DVD player. PowerDVD 6 has a capture with it, some DVD players you get do not !!! If you get one, make sure you can get caps (still frames)
If you get PowerDVD 6, you might what to check this out. This is what I got and it works great
http://www.pricecastle.com/catalog.php?product=14
When you get up and running and have any ?s I'll be more then glad to help in any way I can
You might also want to check this guys site out. It's a nice place
http://www.winsupersite.com/