Advice for External TV Tuner Boxes?

MsGeek asks: "It's time to replace my TV. My current TV is old, ugly and it has a Coax input and an input for the -really- old-school flat two-wire TV antenna cable. I have been looking at tuner boxes like the ViewSonic NextVision series. These are different from external USB tuners in that you don't need to use it with a computer to make it work...you just plug the monitor into the box and away you go. Aver makes a series of these boxes too, as do a few other manufacturers. I was wondering...does anyone in the Slashdot audience actually *use* one of these devices? Do you have good luck with them? How is the computer pass-through input? Does running VGA signals through the box before they hit the monitor degrade them in any way?"

"The reason why I'm looking at this rather than a computer based solution is simple: I don't want to have to rely on whether or not my computer boots or not to be able to watch TV or a DVD. These devices are not dependent in any way shape or form on a computer: you can plug a computer into them through a VGA pass-through port, but it does not need the computer to be able to display TV signals, DVD, videotape or game console input.

Another nice thing is that you can swap out the monitor for a newer, bigger, more improved one at any time, and that when HDTV versions of these boxes come out, it will be a simple matter to just disconnect the old standard analog TV box and install the brand-spanking-new HDTV version. Most 17" CRT monitors are capable of displaying all the HDTV formats, from 1028i to 768p to whatever. Of course, there are bigger CRT and LCD monitors out there, but the 17" is what I have on hand right now to use with it. Besides, the old hunk-o'-junk isn't too much bigger of a screen than a 17" monitor anyway.

Oh yeah, and because these boxes don't rely on computer hardware or software, they can be used with any computer running any kind of OS. Linux? No problem! *BSD? No problem! MacOS 7.5.3 'Unity Release'? No problem! ~_^"

Comments

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[GigsVT]

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Upconverters

I use the $69 model (what has become the green box, the one with the IR remote) for hooking a game system, a satellite box, and a computer to a monitor all at the same time. Computer video is not degraded at all when you use quality VGA cables. Not the thin kind, the shielded kind.

Basically you get svideo input, Coax input to an internal tuner if you want to use direct cable or antenna (or channel 3 for another device input), VGA computer passthrough when the box is off... It's got plenty of inputs.

If you want simpler, you can get the cheesebox. If you want more expensive, you can get video scalers, the lower end ones are just line doublers, they just double each scan line to get 640X480 from NTSC. Line doubled video looks pretty good though on a monitor, especially a larger one. It's not perfect though, it won't look quite as good as a high quality TV, especially up close.