TV Tuner Cards
 

Anyone have any experience with these?

My roommate owns the tv in our room, so I'm having to watch what he's watching or playing (his ps2).

i dont want to drag a tv in there, so I'm thinking about gettin a tuner card. there are 2 cable outlets, so that's no problem.

my video card (mx440 128mb :( ) doesnt have tuner card feature so i'm thinkin about gettin another pci card to do the job.

what i would like to know is how good these things work. how about switching channels? how good is the quality usually? how much resources does this hog?

any ideas/suggestions welcome.

They work pretty decently; quality isn't as great as a regular TV's, but I don't mind it at all. I have a ATI TV Wonder VE. It's a PCI card, should be pretty cheap. You download the software if it's not included and change the channels with the + and - buttons on the keypad. You can use the numbers for direct access, too. It accepts coax and rca connection. You hook the audio from the TV Tuner card to the Line-In or Mic of your sound card and set it up in the software. Doesn't take up much resources at all.

The TV Wonder VE is kind of old, you might want to get a tuner that comes with a remote so you can be lazy. Also you can program the software to record just like a VCR. Uses significantly more resources while it's recording. Good luck on your search for a TV tuner. For me, it was very worth it.

I have an AverTV Stereo (PCI card). It works fairly well. I don't like the software too much, but it works fine for what I do. I really don't notice any drain on my resources at all. Picture quality is acceptable, although if you are used to supernice HDTV TV images you'll be really disappointed.

It can also double as a capture card.

I think I paid something $50 at Fry's for it.

I'll chime in with a third option.

I bought a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card. The software is ok, the quality is alright. The capture software was crap so I went with another package.

My card requires looping a small audio cord from a jack on the TV card to the audio input on my soundcard. Not a big problem, but if you're using your audio in jack you'll have to get a splitter or something.

I think the best option would be for you to get an ATI All-in-Wonder card, I've heard nothing but good about those and your MX is pretty dated.

Really, your not satisfied with your hauppauge?
The last studio i did some work at was using them for analog capture and i've heard much good said of them in the video industry. I'm rather suprised to say the least.

On a side note, has anyone seen tv cards on the market that use optical output or just co-axial?

I second the ATI-all in wonder

You can even get a remote control that works on RF instead of IR.
The capture quality can be from a low quality VHS tape to high quality DVD depending on how much HD space you want to take up.

I just installed a Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Deluxe ($45 shipped at the egg). I have nothing but praise for it. The picture quality is good, does not take up that much resources (when not recording), remote control works really well. I had it installed and viewing in less than 20 mins. You can also goto titantv and signup there to get a programming guide that has one touch recording. There are many formats choices for recording as well. The FM tuner pulls in signals quite well with the supplied antenna as well.

I used to have a Zoltrix TV Remote Edition Tuner on my PIII 450 With a Voodoo 3000 (6 years ago!) and the quality was great! A good cable connection makes tv on that thing look like a DVD!

I can only imagine that they've only gotten better in the past 5 years.

Leadtek WinFast TV Tuner (such as the 2000XP Deluxe)
http://www.leadtek.com/multimedia/wi..._expert_1.html

Imho, best there is.

I am running a Hauppauge WinTV Radio, which I installed in a box running MythTV to make my own DVR (like Tivo). It works pretty well. On a monitor, you can certainly tell the difference in quality, but when it is running into the TV, which it always is, you can *barely* tell, and most of that is because I havent gotten the colors tweaked perfectly yet. I am very happy with it, and seeing as I only payed $40 for it on eBay, I think I got a pretty good deal.