TV Tuners For The PC: Internal Or External

~*77*~ writes "TV tuners are gaining popularity for simple TV watching on your home PC, as well providing capturing capabilities intended to rival Tivo style devices. BigBruin.Com has new reviews taking a look at two TV tuners in the $50 range... An internal, PCI device from Leadtek... And an external, USB 2.0 device from Transcend... Head to head testing decide whether either is worth your time or money."

Comments

External

[Nermal6693]

Personally, I think that external FireWire are the best, because they seem to have better cross-platform compatibility. I use a Mac, and it's hard to find someware for internal PCI tuners.

Re:External

[Nermal6693]

And that "someware" is supposed to be "software" :)

Re:External

[Bastian]

Also very handy if you replace that desktop with a laptop or some such.

Re:External

[Trillan]

Which one od you use?

Drivers for internal PCI tuners are usually crap on Windows. I think I'm on my third card, and I keep throwing them out and trying a different one because of the drivers...

Re:External

[Pharmboy]

I already have an internal, but the reason I am looking for an external is so I can take it with me camping, with the laptop. It already has a DVD player, and some camps have cable, or use the antenna on the RV. This is much smaller than dragging a TV around, better picture, bigger picture than many tvs, and I can play my casino games if nothing is on ;)

Re:External

[gabebear]

Firewire tuners are also the most expensive. Elgato makes some really great ones for MacOS. A good way to import video is through a firewire video camera, the video quality is excellent, and you'll probably be buying one anyway.

For recording shows I like using a ReplayTV(a TIVO would do), then you can connect to it over the network and play your shows on your computer.

Re:External

[Moofie]

"Camping" means "Don't have access to cable TV".

Call it a boundary condition.

Re:External

[sigaar]

I think I'm on my third card, and I keep throwing them out and trying a different one because of the drivers...

Stay clear of the Zoltrix cards then. They don't support Windows NT/2k/XP at all, and the various drivers I downloaded from the internet either didn't work properly (black and white image, at the best of times) or broke windows so badly I coudln't even boot into safe mode. In Windows9x the zoltrix drivers clash with nVidia drivers, so the image doesn't update. I've given up on watching TV in Windows

Re:External

[emorphien]

Yeah, I like to go camping to get away from all that crap. As much as I like technolog, and civilization is good, being out in the woods camping and relaxing is a cleansing experience in a sense.

Prepares you for all the shiat when you get back.

Re:External

[Trillan]

I've had Haupage, AVer and now ATi. They all sucked. The ATi sucks the least, though.

(I think I'm missing one from my list.)

Re:External

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Don't use the given software, use DScaler or Virtual Dub.

Re:External

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a KWorld card that cost about $15. Basically a straight BT878 card. Works perfectly in Windows and Linux, with lots of third-party driver options for both.

Heck, you can even pick up police radio on the thing.

Re:External

[iantri]

If it is a bt848/bt878 card (most are), the open source btwincap drivers will work best -- they are based on the reference code from Brooktree.

Black and white image is likely because the TV standard is not set properly (PAL in Europe, NTSC in North America).

But yes, I agree.. video capture blows under Windows. It is even possible under Windows NT/2K/XP to fuck things up badly enough that you have to restart to get it to capture again.

Re:External

[bedouin]

I use a Mac, and it's hard to find someware for internal PCI tuners.

I'm using an AlchemyTV DVR in my PowerMac. It's a PCI TV card with remote and DVR software. For about $20 less you can get the same card without the remote or DVR capabilities.

Another option is finding an old bt848-based card and experimenting with iTV.

As I see it, the main reason to go with internal rather than external is latency. If you're planning to play video games through your TV card, anything USB or FW is out of the question. Also don't forget that if you own a DV cam with video-in, and a VCR you can use as a tuner, you probably don't need to buy a TV card at all.

If you're not planning to attach a console to your TV card, I think the best option would be investing in a DV bridge of some sort, and attaching a VCR. Though you might not care about it now, being able to edit analog captures, either from television or VHS with iMovie/FCP/FCE is a nice luxury.

Re:External

[Pharmboy]

Camping" means "Don't have access to cable TV".

Thats pretty closed minded. There are hundreds of camp grounds that are designed for people who disagree, and range from the high end camps with pools, spas and concrete pads to park your diesel pusher on, to middle of the road KOA grounds.

YOU might camp to get close to nature, but some camp for different reasons. They travel all over, visit lots of cool places, and since they spend so much time doing it, they want to be comfortable while they do it.

We camp regularly, but not in a tent. We camp to be close to the lake and fishing, to get away from the house and the headaches, and we do it in a small, pull behind camper. It has a stove, sink, bathroom, bed, table, etc. Its old, but it works. Over a million of us camp this way in the states. We go for 2 to 14 days, and yes, like entertainment while we camp. We like to CHOOSE what we are getting away from, and what we can take with us.

Not everyone wants to camp primitive, and most people don't.

Re:External

[Moofie]

You're certainly entitled to your predilections, but I've never really thought that going and parking a large vehicle on a concrete pad and hooking it up to sewer and electricity, and then staying inside it, has very little to do with "camping".

I mean, knock yourself out, but I think we need to come up with another verb. To my mind, one of the prime virtues of "camping" is "low impact on my environment", which a 30' diesel powered truck with satellite TV is not.

Re:External

[WesG]

DScaler is by far the best TV tuner app I have found. All of the ones that come with the TV tuner cards freeze or don't work right.

If you want one that works try DScaler - its open source and easy to use!

Re:External

[unitron]

Well, if you're going to throw them out, throw them in my direction. I'll find good homes for them.

Re:External

[Jeremy Erwin]

I was musing about getting a bt8xx card for my powermac, but I got the strong impression that attempts to write proper drivers quickly die. There used to be a bt8xx module in darwin. It dissapeared. There's been little activity associated with Xtelevison. And, near as I can figure out, development on iTV stopped at version 0.2. Does iTV work with a modern version of OSX? I can't tell.

What would be nice if someone wrote Mac drivers for that pchdtv card.

Re:External

[liquidice5]

DScaler is an awesome program

I just got a Haup-whatever card from a friend, and XP would BSOD if i tried to start the software from their website

so a friend recommended DScaler, and it has worked awesomly every step of the way

--- as a side note, is there a good pref open source program to control the FM tuner that TV cards are coming with today ?

Re:External

[john_is_war]

Low end Happauge suck, but the higher end TV tuners are best of them all.

Re:External

[Fishead]

MSI TV@NYWHERE card is especially crap. I did find however that the ATI drivers not only worked, but worked better then the MSI drivers.

In WinXP if you drag a video from one monitor to the other (Using dual head of course) it locks up until you actually do a hard reset (ie. flatten out the 120VAC for a few seconds)

Now to get the tv@nywhere card to work with MythTV.

Re:External

[geminidomino]

I've been trying to find some info on this myself for awhile. I have a Hauppauge WinTV Go (Bt878-based card running on Linux). The quality is pretty crappy. Will getting one of the more expensive Capture cards (I refuse to touch ATI) possibly fix this, or should I just deal with it and/or hook my video game TV into the cable instead?

Re:External

[afidel]

Here, here!
The BEST vacation I ever took was at Zion Ponderosa ranch and resort. I stayed in a cowboy cabin, no phone, no tv, no cellphone reception, no internet, just a table lamp and a clock radio that got three stations! It was THE most relaxing week of my life. Getting totally away from technology and enjoying the great outdoors was wonderfull. They kept me so busy that I didn't have time to miss the toys. I would highly recomend it to any fellow geeks who are starting to feel a little stressed.

Re:External

[NateTech]

Haupauge are well-known as having high quality cards, perhaps it's your choice of operating systems?

Re:External

[HybridJeff]

You're certainly entitled to your predilections, but I've never really thought that going and parking a large vehicle on a concrete pad and hooking it up to sewer and electricity, and then staying inside it, has very little to do with "camping".

I mean, knock yourself out, but I think we need to come up with another verb. To my mind, one of the prime virtues of "camping" is "low impact on my environment", which a 30' diesel powered truck with satellite TV is not.

Id agree, call it RV'ing or somthign like that. Sleeping in an oversized van with satellite TV and a gas powered oven is not camping. Its more akin to taking your own hotel room with you as you travel. Sure it could be fun, and a convenient way to travel and get away from work in the city. But its definatly not camping.

Re:External

[Mycroft_VIII]

Well I've got an ATI all-in-wonder radeon 9600 and it's tunner doesn't seem to have any major bugs. But I mostly use it with a vcr, which brings me to my major bitch. It 'honors' macromedia. Antime I try and play a vhs tape with that crap it turns into a parody of scrambled cable. This bugs me to no end, I paid for a product that doesn't work by design in it's main function, letting me use my monitor to view content for tv!. I'm hoping someone will get some linux drivers written that fixes this, but in the meantime It's crippled.
My question would be, and this almost certainly bears on the question posted, What tv tuners have what limitation, espcially the drm/copy protection related crap.

Mycroft

Re:External

[Majik Sznak]

Macrovision

Not Macromedia...

Re:External

[Mycroft_VIII]

LOL, sorry wrong kind of crap. But at least someone was smart enough to understand despite the brain slip. I have issues with names, I get them swapped on all kinds of things, I've got friends I've known for about 3 years, I still tend to call one by the other's name. That's why I've been useing the same pseudonym online for 14 years.

Mycroft

Re:External

[sigaar]

It's a Zoltrix TV-MAX, bt848 with Phillips tuner. It's the btwincap drivers that broke my win2k... so badly I had to reinstall - couldn't even get it to boot in safe mode.

The drivers that gave me black and white was from iuVCR. They sell a capture program, and also provide drivers. There is a demo and commecial version of the driver, but they don't mention anything about colour being limited to the commercial one: http://www.iulab.com/drv/index.shtml

I did see a couple of new projects on google, so I'll give it a bash.

I don't know how much of the troubles I had was a result of the BS nVidia drivers. A lot of funny bugs went away when I replaced it with a Radeon 7500. For example, in Win98, the image works now. In linux I could never watch TV in full screen in anything higher than 16bit colour. From what I read on google, it was a PCI bandwidth issue. What nonsense. With the Radeon I can do 24bit and watch TV fullscreen at any resolution the Radeon can do.

In general I've learned to avoid Zoltrix products though. I had a Zoltrix Cobra internal modem (hcf). The drivers for win2k was unstable as hell, connection was slow, and windows always started behaving really funny about two weeks after installing those drivers. Weird stuff like OpenGL breaking and sound becoming fragmented. All that went away when I tried the generic drivers from conexant.

Re:External

[SmittyTheBold]

Their drivers have been spotty along the way. I've had a WinTV-FM PCI forever, and there have been some rough patches. For example, the transition from VFW to WDM took a few tries to get right. The integration between their various apps (in particular the IR remote util and the WinTV app) could use a little work, too.

That said, it's been a wonderful card. Worked really well in BeOS back when I ran that all the time, and was rather well-supported in Linux variations from four years ago.

Re:External

[Mochatsubo]

You mean macrovision. Not "macromedia."

Of course this has nothing to do with the TV tuner section of the card, but it function of the video input.

Unless you can defeat the automatic gain control of the video input, macrovision will probably always be an issue to some extent.

Re:External

[mattyrobinson69]

there's a project to make bttv card work on freebsd and they already work on linux - i watch tv all the time on my linux box.

im not sure about mac tho (i'd think so)

my bttv card is a hauppauge PCI card. The windows app is crap tho (tvtime on linux is nice)

Re:External

[iantri]

I haven't trived the iuLabs drivers, so I can't say.

In my experience, capture under PC (esp. Windows) doesn't really work well with consumer-level products -- you either need a professional video editing package or a Mac with firewire. YMMV.

Re:External

[eofpi]

Or, you can (likely in violation of the DMCA or other offensively broad statutes) get/make a macrovision buster. Apparently most coaxial signal boosters have one built in.

Re:External

[merlin_jim]

I'm on my second card, second operating system, and about 3rd or 4th install on that O/S (KnoppMyth)... all this because:

1. The drivers for Windows suck
2. The install for KnoppMyth truly sucks

And this isn't your typical "I'm a windows user and I can't do things without a wizard" rant.

It's more like this;

I have a device that will run my home theatre. Naturally it has no monitor, it doesn't need one. It only needs to be hooked up to the television.

Except any time I have to boot to text mode in KnoppMyth, or if I have to boot into admin mode. Because KnoppMyth isn't smart enough about tv-out to try to make a compatible signal during it's install.

Sure I had to hack Windows XP to get it to run properly in the same conditions; but because the installer goes for a least common denominater, I can do it all without lugging over a monitor.

Oh and for those thinking of trying to install a hauppauge in WinXP; good luck. Of the 4 people I personally know, all of whom know a thing or two about computers, who have attempted to do so, none have ever succeeded. I honestly have no clue how they passed their own internal QA, much less the Windows Hardware Quality Labs on this product.

Re:External

[Mycroft_VIII]

No it's specificaly 'honored' by the video card or drivers according to ATI themselves.
MacroVISION (mea culpa before). works, as you hinted at, by varying the signal such that while a tv's slower autogain will display it fine, a vcr's typicaly more reactive autogain will be fubared, resulting in a copy that darkens and lightens significantly.
This is NOT what I get from macrovisioned tapes, I get what looks alot like scrambled cable, wavy, highly distorted, colored bands that sorta suggest that image may have once existed. I've seen what macrovision does in fairly severe cases and the symptoms are completely different, and by design on ATI's part.

Mycroft

Re:External

[Mycroft_VIII]

Hmm, I'll have to look into that. I do remember hearing about signal cleaners and boosters and the like that would fix Macrovisions corruption of the signal (that's really what it is). Some time ago, but I never had any personal problems with macrovision, on the rare occasion I needed to copy somthing so encoded (couple of broken tapes, made sense to copy the repaired version, the repairing I didn't totaly trust) I just made sure the old, but very expensive, vcr we had was the one recorded on. It never had a problem with macrovision. Then again it was borderline prosumer at the time it came out and had hook ups for pro cameras and all sorts of nice options, and cost about $1k at a time when most vcr's were about $200.

Mycroft

Re:External

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, the losers always gotta turn it into an attack on his choice of OS

Re:External

[sigaar]

Just saw that Zoltrix does in fact have a Windows2000 driver for the Zoltrix TV-MAX. But it's still (after what looks like a year or two) in beta, and it doesn't support PAL.

Re:External

[NateTech]

Oh I thought the losers posted as Anonymous Cowards. My bad.

It was a technically accurate statement.

The linux drivers for Haupauge cards have always been stable and work great.

I never use the cards under Windows, but from the threads here it appears there have been some problems with the Windows drivers they've provided.

But the original post said the cards were bad. They're not. The drivers for a particular OS may suck, but there's nothing functionally wrong at all with the cards. Learn to read.

ATI

[RobFrontier]

The only way to go is the ATI All-In-Wonder. FOr the little bit extra you pay, the feature set you get is unmatched.

Re:ATI

[Arathrael]

I have an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800SE, and I'm not really all that happy with it on the tv tuner front.

In my experience, the ATI drivers are somewhat buggy and temperamental on Windows, and worse on linux. Also, I'd love to use Videolan, but it's never worked fully with the AIW. The most recent release is actually able to use my AIW, but only the antenna signal, not the composite, so it can't capture anything from satellite or cable boxes plugged into it. Obviously, that's more of an issue with Videolan, and hopefully it'll work some day soon, but if you wanted to use Videolan with a tv tuner card, it's something you might want to consider.

That's not to say the AIW is bad, and for the price I paid I'm generally happy with it. It does do the job. Usually. But if I had more money, I would definitely have gone for a seperate tv tuner. If nothing else, it's more flexible - you can upgrade the graphics card without worrying about the tv tuner card at the same time.

Re:ATI

[Insomnia]

I agree, the hardware has been pretty good in these.

However, their inability to get drivers that work well in Windows, and their lack of willingness to work with any OSS group to create drivers for other platforms makes the current generation basically useless.

It would be nice if ATI got back to just making their hardware and let others who are more qualified produce their software for them.

Re:ATI

[machineghost]

I had a very negative experience with ATI's TV Wonder. Unless I turned off every other program it would crash often when I was watching TV. Sometimes it even crashed the whole system. Then if I dared to try using the record feature (which was supposed to be a sort of Tivo like thing before DVRs were common) it crashed every few minutes. I tried using it for a small video editing project and I couldn't record more than a couple minutes at a time, if that, because inevitably the whole thing would just shut down.

When I tried to find out the source of the problem, ATI suggested that it was my system's fault, probably my graphics card. However, my system was very nice for its time (166 mhz athlon was impressive five years ago), and the graphics card was an ATI Rage 128 (again, good for the time, and more importantly, it was made by the same freaking company).

So I traded emails and phone calls back and forth with ATI, and in the end got the brilliant suggestion to (I shit you not) uninstall and reinstall the software every single time I wanted to use it!

A year or so later ATI finally released new drivers that were supposed to correct all the problems. But amazingly, ATI refused to make these drivers available on the web. At first you had to pay them to send you a CD (unless you had bought the TV Wonder within the last month), then at some point they droped the fee (except maybe a $2 shipping fee). By that time I was mainly using Linux, but I think I tried the drivers for a bit, and they only crashed once. Yay.

The moral of the story is that any company that will ship a product in that poor of condition, blame another product made by them for the difficulty, suggest that the user re-install the software every time they use it, and then when they finally fix the problems refuse to make the fix available for free on the web, is not a company you want to patronize.

I for one have made it a point never to buy another ATI product. So while the all-in-wonder may be awesome if it actually works for you, at the first sign of trouble you'd best pack it up and return it or else you are in for a world of unhappiness.

Re:ATI

[jasonr2020]

I had sort of a similar experience - my ATI All-In-Wonder was awfully finicky and tended to crash if you did anything too quickly or for too long. ATI's support was less than stellar. Course, this was in 1998 or so, so for all I know they could have gotten better. Not by the sounds of it, though.

Re:ATI

[Trillan]

So I traded emails and phone calls back and forth with ATI, and in the end got the brilliant suggestion to (I shit you not) uninstall and reinstall the software every single time I wanted to use it!

My experiences with TV tuner cards started when my TV broke.

I had to do that with Hauppage's card. Luckily, it only took about five minutes to do and required only one restart.

Eventually, I just bought a new TV. It was easier.

Re:ATI

[lightknight]

Hmm. My experience is that the drivers tend to work well, provided you have a "Built by ATI" card. If you get a "Powered by ATI" card (OEM), then you can run into trouble (they use ATI drivers, but conflicts popup).

Personally, I love watching TV, a DVD, and running OpenGL program all at once, just to showboat it's capabilities: processor time hits a max of 10%. This running on a PII 400Mhz machine, with 128MB of ram.

Sure, you can get seperate cards that will do each task better (MPEG2 Encoder, Decoder, Video card), but the AIW does each well enough.

I've sworn off all other video cards for the AIW.

As for running an AIW under linux (Slackware), give up.

Re:ATI

[malfunct]

I thought that the ATI did its mpeg2 encoding in software.

I'd like to try out the Haupauge WinTV PVR-250 I've heard it works quite well.

Re:ATI

[Sancho]

I've got an ATI Radeon AiW 9000. I wish I didn't.

Where should I begin grousing about this card....
First off, the drivers. They've been lousy at LEAST since the stock Radeon AiW. Sure, they give decent performance, but if you install them in the wrong order (there are three to install--four if you want DVD decoding) then you lose some functionality. Typically it's TV/Capture, however at least once I've lost all DirectX support. The only way to fix the problem is to uninstall everything ATI in the system and start over. It's a serious pain in the ass...not to mention the drivers (or Windows) wants you to reboot after installation, even though the instructions on ATI's website tell you not to reboot after the first install. So it's something like "Install Driver 1, DON'T REBOOT, Install Driver 2, REBOOT, Install Driver 3, REBOOT." I haven't messed with the drivers on my system for some time because right now, it works. I'm afraid of going through driver hell and not being able to play Thief 3 :)

Then there's the software they provide for watching TV. It uses a funky custom windowing system, probably so they could make it easily skinnable. This is fine with me, although I prefer minimalistic skins. The problem comes with how often the display is refreshed. When you move a window over the TV window, the entire system bogs down. As soon as the window is clear of the TV window, everything returns to normal. It's quite frustrating, as it cripples multitasking while you're viewing the TV applet. Don't even think about multitasking while capturing--if you move a window over the TV program, you drop frames like mad, even though the computer system should be more than capable of running Firefox while capturing full frame video. It's hard to find a decent TV application--even harder to find one that does capture, and harder yet to find one that's inexpensive. For watching TV, I settled on MyTV, even though it has a number of bugs. For capture, I now use VirtualDub, although the lack of a timer is unfortunate.

Sooner or later, I'll upgrade my video card. It may still be an ATI--they've definately got performance going for them right now. But it will not be an All-in-Wonder. For video capture, I'll either get a firewire solution or WinTV (most of the WinTV cards also do quite well under Linux, incidentally).

Re:ATI

[Anonymous Coward]

(166 mhz athlon was impressive five years ago)

By Q4 1999, AMD had released the 800 MHz Athlon.

Re:ATI

[Mycroft_VIII]

ATI, for now at least, has fixed the software driver mess a bit. Go get thier current drivers, you can get them as a single download that installs in one go, no chance of miss-ordered install.
I do have a gripe, as I mentioned above it's the scrambled cable look of any vhs tape I try to watch with macrovision. ATI says this is deliberate.

MYcroft

Re:ATI

[Mycroft_VIII]

No ATI has hardware support for video encoding and decoding of mpeg. I believe full support with radeon and partial on some previous cards (probably the earlier AIW's)

Mycroft

Re:ATI

[Mycroft_VIII]

Last few months thier windows drivers have been a single file or optional 3 file download, properly organized with understandable version number rather than the release date for version 8 files on seperate pages issue they had before.
Since they started doing that way I've not had any real issues with thier drivers other than thier intentional support of macrovision on VHS tapes I've tried to watch.

Mycroft

Re:ATI

[SubTen]

guess it all really depends on your setup. i've had a aiw 9800 pro (built by ati) for almost a year now and i've never had a problem w/the tv tuner, graphics, or the remote (never tried the dvd decoder). and the driver installs are always simple on winxp.

Re:ATI

[RexxFiend]

I have an AIW 8500 and I would have agreed with you a year ago but the drivers from ati have steadily got better over the last year or so. The current offering (8.5.0.0 I think) is pretty good - very few lockups if any, and the remote support is much better.
And I love the remote! I can have the PC in the spare room next door and control it with the rf remote from the living room - sweet (I have video cables running under the floor from the pc to the telly so I can watch recorded TV and downloaded tv shows on the main telly).
The OSD has got better (you can actually read it on the tv now!) but it is still a bit cack but myhtpc for windys is pretty damn good, coupled with xmltv and the remote, it gives me all the functionality of a tivo (except the prefs unfortunately, although I am working on a script which will process the xmltv output, look for keywords and automatically schedule the recorder).

External

[Barryke]

When placed external, you can take the device with you. Very handy for non-computer experts.

Go for DVB

[soccerisgod]

Get yourself a DVB card, the quality is much better and recording is a lot less trouble.

With analog tv tuner cards you need to encode everything while with a DVB card you can just capture an mpeg stream - a lot less can go wrong and you can always cap full resolution without having to worry about the speed of your cpu or harddisk.

Re:Go for DVB

[isorox]

Of course if you're caping DVB, make sure you can receive DVB. A lot of areas in the UK dont get a decent DVB-T signal, and you cant use DVB-S or -C (sky wont sell CAM's - which is illegal, NTL/Telewest are just stupid).

An Analog-MPEG2 capture card with external tuner would be better.

Re:Go for DVB

[tji]

For those not familiar with DVB, this is used in Europe for satellite and terrestrial TV transmission. There is no open DVB used in the U.S.

But, we have ATSC, the new digital television standard, which broadcasts MPEG2 streams that are easy to record & play.

ATSC has the big advantage that it supports HDTV transmissions, and there is a ton of HDTV programming available. I don't think HDTV has moved past early testing phase in Europe.

Re:Go for DVB

[gabebear]

Elgato seems to have a firewire tuner that supports DVB-S, It's got a funky card reader and only works with Macintoshs, but it does exist (and their software kicks ass)

Re:Go for DVB

[Patrick]

Get yourself a DVB card

DVB doesn't work in the US, does it? I think we Americans are pretty much stuck with analog reception of everything that's not over-the-air HDTV. For HDTV we have pchdtv, which works with Linux and captures a straight MPEG stream like you said. For cable, satellite, and over-the-air analog, we're stuck with capture cards like the BT8*8 and PVR-250. Analog capture works well enough to be watchable and can be encoded easily in real time on a modern (e.g., 2 GHz+) PC.

Re:Go for DVB

[catacow]

DVB also supports HDTV. We've had HDTV using DVB here in Australia for years, including 1080i. See the DBA site for more info.

DBA also supports a whole lot of interesting features (single frequency networks being the first that comes to mind) that ATSC doesn't.

Re:Go for DVB

[Kris_J]

I bought a fairly cheap digital TV tuner/capture card not for the TiVo thing, but simply because at ~A$150 it was the cheapest and easiest way to sample digital TV here in Australia. I got two bits of info out of the purchase:

• Digital TV in Australia isn't worth bothering about.
• A VCR is still easier to tape Angel with than some sort of digital system.

My PC, while it has a Zalman NR power supply is still much noisier than a VCR, and the software that came with my cheap digital card isn't the world's most stable -- playback is okay, recording typically causes it to crash.

Re:Go for DVB

[enrico_suave]

you can get DVB / FTA in the us/canada
dvb fta overview | Planet DVB...

granted a lot of the programming is foreign... but theres plenty of free satellite music, pbs, and uh... stuff... great way to get news from diffeent sources all over the world.

*Shrug*

e.

Re:Go for DVB

[Osty]

Digital TV in Australia isn't worth bothering about.

I don't know what content is available in Ozland, but here in the States I find myself watching any random crap so long as it's in HD. For instance, one of Comcast's INHD channels had a Lingerie bowl (yes, women in lingerie playing football) not too long ago. Scantily clad women running around is pretty irresistable, especially in high-def, but it's not something I'd actively search for.

A VCR is still easier to tape Angel with than some sort of digital system

Is Tivo available in AU? If so, it blows the pants off of any VCR. I love my Tivo, and would never even consider switching back to a normal VCR.

My PC, while it has a Zalman NR power supply is still much noisier than a VCR

Power supplies are rarely the main source of noise in a PC. You really need to start with your other fans, especially on your CPU and GPU. Once you have those at an acceptable level, then you could start worrying about the PS. Changing to a noise reducing power supply without doing anything else is a waste of time and money IMHO.

Re:Go for DVB

[Anonymous Coward]

HDTV != DTV

High Def doesnt automatically imply Digital

Nor does Digital require the signal transmitted to be High Def.

An analog signal can be 'High Def'. One can transmit a non-'High Def

Why do so many (especially /. readers) not understand the difference?

Re:Go for DVB

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

You're confusing HDTV and DTV.

The US standard is indeed not DVB (EchoStar/Dish Network is, but it is encrypted so you can't decode it).

You can probably pick up over-the-air digital TV in your area. All you need is an antenna (often "rabbit ears" will do) and an ATSC card. Although ATSC can carry HDTV (and more and more programs are HD), not all ATSC streams are high definition.

If you have cable or satellite, you are indeed out of luck. Fortunately, digital cable is becoming more standardized.

There are also cards with hardware MPEG encoding, so you can take the load off of your CPU.

Re:Go for DVB

[jquirke]

Digital TV in Australia isn't worth bothering about

You certainly share my thoughts in some respect - although most content is at least 16x9 SD, in the cities at least, the digital signal does show up a lot of poorer editing processes and artifacts during the production process.

On the other hand, in Melbourne and Brisbane we have 1080i HD (@1920x1080) and that looks absolutely stunning on some programs, and movies.

Re:Go for DVB

[catacow]

I disagree. Yes, sometimes the digital signal does show up problems in the production, such as composite video, or that sort of thing. But there's also a lot of shows with extremely good picture quality. I prefer to have the digital signal, and see the quality where it's available, rather than watching everything with the all the problems of composite video.

It's a pity that channel seven are still unable to show most of their sport or live shows in widescreen, while even the ABC manages to show local football matches with fantastic widescreen picture. It was also disappointing that this year's formula 1 race here in Melbourne wasn't widescreen, but that wasn't channel ten's fault, as the f1 guys have taken back control over the tv coverage.

It has been a bit disappointing lately, with the amount of HD programming seeming to drop off a little. It's hard to believe that a few years ago, the three original star wars movies were shown in HD with 5.1 sound on Nine. Now the only show with 5.1 sound is A Current Affair (and maybe Mcloud's daughters). But the picture quality on shows like The Panel make them an absolute treat to watch.

For anyone wanting to see what's available in HD and SD, there's a pretty complete and accurate guide at www.widescreentv.info. Just ignore 7's "HD", which really shouldn't count as HD. They use the 576p format, yet most of their content comes from 1080i sources (both internally (apparently), and externally). So while we will apparently get some of the Olympics in "HD", it's pretty disappointing that they won't just show it in the correct 1080i format it's produced in.

Re:Go for DVB

[Anonymous Coward]

"High Def doesnt automatically imply Digital"

Sure, right... Now please show me the analog HDTV over-the-air channels, satellite receivers, cable providers, or video disks (no, laser disk is analog but not HD).

Tell me who has the 20Mhz analog bandwidth to waste like that?

Re:Go for DVB

[Kris_J]

On the other hand, in Melbourne and Brisbane we have 1080i HD (@1920x1080) and that looks absolutely stunning on some programs, and movies.

Yeah, but it's the same content.

Digital TV Australia: Still nothing on, but it looks so much better.

Re:Go for DVB

[Kris_J]

I find myself watching any random crap so long as it's in HD

While HD does look significantly better than SD (I can compare this on my Sony Trinitron 21" VGA monitor) , the cost of a big screen isn't worth it. Also, the sound quality drops.

Is Tivo available in AU

Nope. Just out of interest, how do you record something for someone else with TiVo? Give me my Sony SLV-EZ2000S in long play with a BASF 5 hour tape doubled to 10 hours any day.

Power supplies are rarely the main source of noise in a PC

I guess I'm special. Anyway, I wasn't comparing my PC to other PCs, it's much quieter, I was comparing it to my VCR, running at night, in my bedroom.

For the record I also purchased a Zalman 6000-series heatsink, but the CPU socket is too close to the power supply and the damn thing doesn't fit. If anyone can point me to a hifi component-style black case that has room for 4 5.25" drives and has the power supply a decent distance away from the CPU, please post a URL.

Re:Go for DVB

[hayden]

For those not familiar with DVB, this is used in Europe for satellite and terrestrial TV transmission.

Also used downunder. Lots of info (and the usual quantity of whingers) on a forum here. Also has a good round up of the cards available in Australia including current linux support.

Currently in Australia all major tv channels transmit standard definition digital (576i) and some transmit some programs as HD. Unfortunately the recent England rugby tour isn't :)

Re:Go for DVB

[Osty]

While HD does look significantly better than SD (I can compare this on my Sony Trinitron 21" VGA monitor) , the cost of a big screen isn't worth it. Also, the sound quality drops.

Huh? Let me first note that I'm referring to matters in the States and not AU, since I know the States, and that all dollar figures are in USD. Now, you can buy good quality, reasonably-sized (45"+) rear projection TVs for under $2000 (significantly under, in many cases -- my own 48" Mitsubishi was $2000 three years ago, and prices have dropped since). If that's still too much, you can get HD-ready CRT sets starting around $750 for 32", or 27" CRTs starting around $430. Yes, the sets are smaller, and may not be available in a 16x9 configuration, but the HD picture quality is still vastly superior (as well, you'll also benefit from better DVD picture quality and be able to play in progressive scan with a proper player, and play GC or XBox games in 480p or higher depending on what resolutions the games and TV support).

Second, what exactly do you mean that sound quality drops? That's not been my experience. In fact, sound quality is better because most (all?) HD broadcasts are accompanied by DD5.1 sound, while most SD broadcasts don't do that (there's nothing stopping them, they just don't). If you mean that the built-in TV audio is lesser quality, I don't agree with that either. Sure, the cheapest HD-ready sets may skimp on the audio hardware, but my Mits has a decent set of speakers in it (certainly better than the speakers in my 6 year old 27" Magnavox SD CRT). That said, to get the true experience you really should opt for a home theater system. The "Home Theater in a Box" options are generally decent, if not awe-inspiring, and will at least get you positional audio for a low price. Try to find a package that's either built from individual components or at least doesn't preclude upgrades by using proprietary interconnects (for example, my own "HTiaB" was really just an in-store package deal on some Definitive satellite speakers, a Definitive subwoofer, and a lower-end Denon receiver. Not the best in the world, but it's adequate, and sounds better than a friend's Bose system that cost three times as much. The downside here is that you'll usually have to provide speaker wire yourself, which isn't a huge issue; be sure to buy wire in bulk of an appropriate gauge, and don't sucked into paying extreme amounts of money for "name brand" cables like Monster, since they're no better than good quality bulk wire, and you generally can only buy those in either useless pre-cut sizes or small spools that will wire perhaps one rear channel per spool).

Nope. Just out of interest, how do you record something for someone else with TiVo? Give me my Sony SLV-EZ2000S in long play with a BASF 5 hour tape doubled to 10 hours any day.

I don't, but that's not a selling point for me. I couldn't care less if I can share my Tivo'ed content with others. However, there are plenty of hacks out there for pulling Tivo recordings off of the Tivo and converting them into formats that you can then use on a PC or burn to a VCD or DVD. If I had anything worth saving long-term on my Tivo, I might consider playing with those hacks, but a) I've never found anything that I cared to keep that long term, and b) even if I did, I've never yet hit the size limit on my 80GB Tivo, and if I ever did I'd be more likely to do a hard drive upgrade hack first.

guess I'm special. Anyway, I wasn't comparing my PC to other PCs, it's much quieter, I was comparing it to my VCR, running at night, in my bedroom.

Any PC, even the quietest, is going to run louder than a VCR, since VCRs generally only make noise when playing or recording. However, my Tivo is very quiet, and while it does make constant noise, it's much quietter than a VCR in operation. My point, however, was that complaining that your PC is still loud even though you've replaced the PS with a noise reducing model is silly.

Re:Go for DVB

[catacow]

A VCR is still easier to tape Angel with than some sort of digital system.

You really should give mythtv a go. There's a good screen scraper for the guide information, and support for DVB cards is excellent now. I don't know why anyone would bother using an analogue card to do the same thing. A digital card is less than a PVR-250. Angel is in widescreen, so you're missing out if you're using a VCR (nevermind the normal quality issues). And if they change the time one week, you don't have to worry, it'll still be there waiting for you when you go to watch it. It's also great being able to program it away from home - something you can't do with a VCR.

For recording under Windows, I hear webvcr is pretty good.

Re:Go for DVB

[Jeremy Erwin]

Sure, right... Now please show me the analog HDTV over-the-air channels, satellite receivers, cable providers, or video disks (no, laser disk is analog but not HD).

The Japanese had an analog HDTV system called Muse, which could also be used to view HiVision LaserDiscs.

Re:Go for DVB

[alhaz]

The US standard is indeed not DVB (EchoStar/Dish Network is, but it is encrypted so you can't decode it).

Never say "can't decode it" - all I'm sayin.

Re:Go for DVB

[Kris_J]

Second, what exactly do you mean that sound quality drops?

I mean that when I go from the SD stream to the HD stream using the same hardware the sound appears to drop to mono, or at least loses a lot of definition.

My rig is: PC with PCI DTV tuner card and Soundblaster Audigy 2 connected to Yamaha Dolby Pro Logic surround sound receiver (center, left, right, surround). It's not the latest and greatest, but I think I can use it to determine that the sound quality of the HD stream is much worse than the SD stream.

Re:Go for DVB

[Osty]

I mean that when I go from the SD stream to the HD stream using the same hardware the sound appears to drop to mono, or at least loses a lot of definition

Maybe Australian DTV channels are just fucked up, but I really doubt they chose to sacrifice the analog audio tracks (DPL) and only provide DD5.1 and mono. I would guess there's some setup issue with your hardware. Either the audio is getting passed incorrectly from the tuner card to the Audigy2, or the Audigy 2 is sending the wrong signals to your DPL receiver. I'd guess the former, though I don't know how audio is handled by the tuner card. Also, you should think about upgrading your receiver. Receivers that support DD5.1 (and more) are damned cheap these days. Even the most basic Denon surround receiver you can buy these days supports DD5.1 (I'm a fan of Denon, but all of the other major brands and most of the minor brands are the same), and won't even set you back $200USD. Worthwhile upgrade, IMHO.

It's not the latest and greatest, but I think I can use it to determine that the sound quality of the HD stream is much worse than the SD stream.

No, the only thing you can determine is that the HD stream is much worse than the SD stream for your specific configuration. That's completely different than concluding that HD audio sucks in general.

Re:Go for DVB

[Osty]

Oh, something else I should mention. The audio tracks that broadcast with HD channels typically use less compression (in the audio sense, not the data sense), so the tracks may sound softer than the SD channels. Turn up the volume on your receiver, and you'll be okay. Unless your receiver really sucks, you won't have to turn it up much, and you shouldn't be anywhere near the distortion point of your receiver. For example, I typically watch SD feeds at -30 (Denon receivers go from -50 or -100 to some positive value I've never tried to reach. A volume of "0" is very, very loud). When I switch to a HD channel, I'll typically need to bump up the volume to -20 (I'll put it up to -15, or sometimes even -10 when watching movies). My DVD player's DD5.1 output is the same, with the proper volume level being somewhere between -15 and -20 for most movies. Oddly, though, my XBox's DD5.1 (in games) rarely needs to go higher than -30, though some games do seem to be softer than others (PGR2 plays best at -25).

So, try playing with the volume of your receiver. It may be that the tracks seem to lose definition simply because they're playing too quietly.

Re:Go for DVB

[Kris_J]

I'll get around to upgrading the receiver eventually. I almost did just to be able to use the Audigy's optical line out because I was running out of ins and outs.

I'll try screwing with the settings this evening.

Re:Go for DVB

[isorox]

Not for Sky Digital (DVB-S platform the the UK)

Re:Go for DVB

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean that when I go from the SD stream to the HD stream using the same hardware the sound appears to drop to mono, or at least loses a lot of definition.

There's something wrong with your setup or reception. I'm using a Digital TV box in Australia, and I have much better sound quality than the old-style broadcasts.

I'm looking at getting a DVB card, but at the moment my Digital TV box is feeding into an analogue TV tuner card and my soundcard.

Re:Go for DVB

[Kennu]

DVB isn't as easy as you may think. Since the MPEG-2 stream is broadcast over unreliable media, you get a lot of broken/missing packets. Hardware decoders (set-top-boxes) can cope with this, but PC-based software often has problems, because it's designed for DVD playback only.

A particularly hairy issue is trying to transcode captured DVB MPEG-2 video into something else, such as DivX. You usually lose lipsync or have the codecs crash on you because of the errors.

Of course, DVB is clearly the way to go in the future in Europe, but the PC software and codecs need to get better.

Re:Go for DVB

[Anonymous Coward]

We have one HDTV channel in Europe - http://www.euro1080.tv/ , broadcasting a huge 4 hours of programming daily!

Sky Digital (Pay TV operator via DSAT) are planning on launching HDTV in 2006 - http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds14675.html

No doubt this will be encoded in Videoguard which CAMs are not avaible for, requiring the use of a Sky Digibox (probably HDTV version).

As for DVB-T in the UK - in most places you'll need a roof top aerial (as you do for analogue), Berlin/Brandenberg, Belgium, Baveria and The Netherlands (Pay TV only) are about the only places where you can use DVB-T with a set back aerial (and all 4 promote that as a selling point) - They all recommend a Euro50 aerial though.

Re:Go for DVB

[arethuza]

In the UK, DVB-T (digital terrestial) and 'in the clear' DVB-S are pretty easy to work with. If you use cheap-n-cheerful cards that don't have hardware MPEG-2 decoders (such as the Hauppauge Nova-T for DVB-T) then you can get access to the streams pretty easily.

Tools like Videolan can then allow you to do all manner of cool stuff - such as multicast it on your LAN.

Re:Go for DVB

[scorilo]

the word blackbird comes to mind... :)

Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[strredwolf]

Is the Leadtek a BTTV chipset card? Inquiring minds want to know if it's already supported. :) I'm on my second card, and that one's not working so well.

Of course, all that matters is how much bandwith you need. Firewire, maybe?

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[ACNSlave]

I'm on my fourth PC TV Tuner solution, an external Hauppauge WinTv PVR (USB 2). All the previous were PCI cards. All worked out of the box, but had tons of driver problems and eventually froze (program/system level) to various extents. The external unit is NOT perfect, but plays a lot nicer with everything else (huge collection of CODECS, etc.) I'd LOVE to get the unit working with Linux, but for now its been great for recording to MPEG-2 files (2/4/6 Mb/sec). Cheers!

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[bhtooefr]

The Leadtek TV2000 XP Deluxe uses a Conexant BT878A chipset, so it's quite compatible with anything that can drive a BT878. Yes, your Linux box supports it. Now, if I just had a box powerful enough to drive one of these...

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[Patrick]

Is the Leadtek a BTTV chipset card?

No. It appears to have a Conexant (CX23883) chipset. Recent kernels do have Conexant support, but it's less mature than the BTTV support.

BTTV cards are easy to come by. KWorld makes a whole line of them, several of which sell in the $30-$40 range. If you've got $100-$120 to burn, buy an MPEG-2 card like a PVR-250.

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about the newer "Expert" model. The older and more common "Deluxe" model they reviewed has the well-supported BT878A chipset.

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[alhaz]

Now, if I just had a box powerful enough to drive one of these...

Your box is powerful enough to drive one of these.

The Bt8x8 line have an on-die risc processor and are designed to perform pci busmaster transfers directly into your video card's memory with little to no interference from your processor once you've set them up.

You could use it on a Pentium 60. You could use it on a 486 if it didn't require stuff that's in post-486-era pci specs.

The overlay transfer uses essentially zero cpu. In fact, if you crash the OS, the overlay transfer keeps going and the video window remains live because the southbridge is still live even if the cpu is trapped.

The PROBLEM, is that mostly the windows drivers don't use the overlay method for reasons that are lame. they use the grab-and-display method, which is dumber than dumb.

The btwincap drivers get around that issue. it's also a total nonissue in linux.

*recording video is another story entirely.

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[cowbutt]

The overlay transfer uses essentially zero cpu. In fact, if you crash the OS, the overlay transfer keeps going and the video window remains live because the southbridge is still live even if the cpu is trapped.

The PROBLEM, is that mostly the windows drivers don't use the overlay method for reasons that are lame. they use the grab-and-display method, which is dumber than dumb.

The btwincap drivers get around that issue. it's also a total nonissue in linux.

Unfortunately, overlay is incompatible with Direct Rendering (aka hardware 3D). Attempting to use overlay mode with a video card that XFree is configured to use for hardware 3D locks the entire machine hard in my experience (Bt878, ATI Rage128 pro & Radeon 7500). :(

OTOH, using grab-and-display allows apps like tvtime to do funky realtime deinterlacing and suchlike, which results in a better picure at the expense of slightly higher CPU load (though the XVideo extension helps out a lot).

--

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[bhtooefr]

Well, that's nice to know - I have a Pentium 233 MMX.

I might just get one of these then. I had read everywhere that if I have less than a 500MHz CPU, don't even think about it. Maybe it's because those drivers use that grab-and-display method...

Re:Does it work with Linux? BTTV?

[jejones]

If you've got $100-$120 to burn, buy an MPEG-2 card like a PVR-250.

Make that $100-$120 and time to wait for the ivtv driver to mature. My wife has forgiven me for getting a PVR-250 as an upgrade for an old Hauppauge card and not being able to make it work on her system running FC1 and now FC2...I think.

What are TV Tuners for?

[Eberlin]

Seriously, what do people use them for? The primary reason I can think of goes along the line of video editing. Other than that, I can't really see why people would forego a generally bigger/cheaper TV screen to see video on a smaller window on a computer monitor.

Any arguments of mobility (as in using laptops to view stuff) seems weak since you'd need to PLUG your TV-tuner onto an antenna/cable/vcr/etc. to get anything.

I'd seriously like to know what uses people have had for such things and reasons why such devices would be worth looking into.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well students, for one thing. Lugging two CRTs in and out of dorms is a nightmare. Just get yourself a 19" LCD and internal TV tuner card and you're set.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[farghen]

Well, when lcd TVs break into the general market and everybody has one, you can forget a normal TV and just use your computer with TV tuner hooked up to an lcd TV/monitor

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Barryke]

I'd seriously like to know what uses people have had for such things and reasons why such devices would be worth looking into.

Videocapture devices: what your downloaded movies are made with.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[aluser]

Seriously, what do people use them for?

Because they live in a tiny dorm room and don't have room for two large screens!

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[DrEldarion]

They're nice for someone with no space for a TV set who already has a nice computer setup. For instance, someone moving into a dorm.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[challahc]

Think TiVo.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[xannik]

Space... As I have lived in many small singles and doubles over my tenure in college I can say that having a tv tuner card has provided me with a lot of extra space. Plus it is also to be able to do things online and watch tv all at the same time. With a separate TV you would ordinarily have to look away from the computer screen to see what is happening on TV, unless you had your TV sitting right next to your computer.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

My daughter (in college) has no TV, but her small dorm room has cable. External USB tuner for her laptop fits the bill.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, my daughter is in college and they're nice for someone with no space for a TV set like her. Also, she already has a nice computer setup. Defintely great for someone moving into a dorm.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poster obviously lives in a bubble and has never seen the likes of a tivo or mythtv...

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Patrick]

Videocapture devices: what your downloaded movies are made with.

Many (most?) downloaded movies are direct-from-DVD rips or DV cameras.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[RonnyJ]

In the last four years spent at university, my TV card has been the single best component I've bought for my computer - for 40 (~$60-70), it's given me TV viewing and recording facilities, with no need to take up extra space in my room and whilst transport with a TV. It's also nice to have a TV window open at the bottom of my screen whilst working :)

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have lived in many small singles and doubles over my tenure in college I can say that having a tv tuner card has provided me with a lot of extra space. Plus it is also to be able to do things online and watch tv all at the same time. With a separate TV you would ordinarily have to look away from the computer screen to see what is happening on TV, unless you had your TV sitting right next to your computer.

As usual, your mileage may vary. Just my $.02.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they're *really* nice for someone with little-to-no space for a TV set and who already has a good computer setup. For instance, someone moving into a dorm.

Other than that, chances are you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Barryke]

aha.. Correction:

Videocapture devices: what some of your downloaded movies are made with.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[DrAegoon]

I'm a college student and I use a TV tuner exclusively. Since I have to fit everything I own into a Nissan Sentra every other semester I can't carry extra hardware arround. My tuner lets me use a high quality LCD as both my Monitor and my TV. It also has the added benefit of letting me use my computer as a PVR (like TiVo) without paying a subscription fee. The quality is equal to a TV of similar size and it doesn't take up anywhere near the room of a standard TV.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[mrjackson2000]

my monitor is bigger than my TV, and my computer has a better sound system. enough said.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[freelunch]

Seriously, what do people use them for?

Are you kidding? For $50 my Leadtek rules for watching TV on my desktop in an arbitrarily sized window while I work or surf.

I watch almost no TV so this saves huge time. I haven't even bothered to get my TV out of storage.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[LoocSiMit]

Other than that, I can't really see why people would forego a generally bigger/cheaper TV screen to see video on a smaller window on a computer monitor.

Your TV is bigger than your monitor?

I'm afraid I have to revoke your membership of the Geek club.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't use a tuner per se, but I use the composite and S-video ins, and dScaler for deinterlacing. The tuners themselves are pretty cheap, nearly any VCR has a better tuner it seems.

I also have a Holo3DGraph I card with component in and a FLI 2200 deinterlacing chip.

My computer has three or four video capture cards, so I have direct links to a lot of separate devices.

I use the HTPC's VGA out to a video projector.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[colinemckay]

So I can sound really cool at parties by saying that I don't own a TV, while secretly watching six Friends reruns a day!

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[farghen]

In addition, when moving between apartments in college (every year basically), it is a pain to move things, and not having a big heavy TV to deal with is nice.

Go Illini!

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[jdowland]

I use one for three reasons:

a) savings. In space on my desk(s) as I move around, and in money (cheaper than a dedicated TV).

b) to convert my old VHS recordings into a digital medium; share/backup them, etc.

c) to disguise the fact I have a TV-device. Its less conspicious than a TV if you aren't paying the TV licence.. which is pretty extortionate for students. Unfortunately this never really worked out as my dorm rooms have been at river-level every year, where there is sod-all reception.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Uzik2]

I record to cd's. They're cheaper than vhs tapes
and they take up a LOT less space.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Mister Liberty]

I have a 21" monitor and am running a TV app in a window 544x408 and the viewing angle of the screen is larger than my TV, which is 60cm across I believe. Plus sharper picture, better sound, no need to look away to a TV-set, less power usage having both PC and TV on -- need I say more? Using a PCTV Pinnacle Pro (nov.2003 model) on Linux.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Mister Liberty]

Sorry, should have said ``the viewing angle of that /window/ is larger than my TV".

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[topher1kenobe]

I use mine to record shows for my kids, which they then watch on the same TV. Remember the Scooby-Doos with famous people in them? I have all of them. I just set up the scheduler to record them every day for 2 months, and then stripped the dupes. It came with simple but useful video editing software to strip the commercials too. I can put them on my laptop and the kids can watch in the car. I have hundreds of Looney Tune cartoons. I can VNC home to start a show for them if my wife sends me an IM and asks. Then she just sends the kids upstairs and there's a show on.

I have an AverTV Studio and I love it.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[chrismtb]

Mostly to save space and often money, and allow recording ability. I am living in a somewhat small single next year and although I could fit a TV, for the amount I would watch it (a couple shows a week at most) it isn't worth the space it would take up or the money it would cost to get one of decent size and quality. Seriously, why would I go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on a TV when I could buy a TV-input card for around $30-40 and watch shows on my 19" monitor without taking up any extra space (except, of course in my roomy computer case)? Plus having an input card allows recording of television programs.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they're generally useless for serious video editing since the quality is too low-- for that, you should transfer directly from (mini)DV to the computer. Though you can easily use it to chop the commercials from something you've recorded, or for transfers of home movies from VHS-- stuff that doesn't have to be broadcast quality.

But with a tuner card, you can digitize movies and TV-- how about having a large HD full of movies instead of a rack of DVD's and tapes? Or setting up your own version of Tivo to record and pause live TV? (Much cheaper than a Tivo, no monthly fees, no hassle of transferring it to your computer if you want to save the program.) Or, the reason I have one, to archive my favorite shows? There are a lot of programs that aren't (and may never be) available on DVD, or the DVD releases are several seasons behind. Coupled with a DVD burner (or even a CD burner making VCDs), it's a cheap way to make your own compilations to watch on your regular TV and DVD player (or just on the TV with a line out.)

Just to show how nerdy I am, I've been recording old David Lettermans on Trio (they show the old NBC shows from the 80's) and clipping the Chris Elliot sketches. It's so much easier to do it with the computer's TV tuner than the other options. If there are other options (two VCRs hooked together?)

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than the college kids you just pissed off, how about a web interface for your PVR solution? The ability to remember something at work and put it on my schedule at home kicks ass. Plus I can burn shows to Video CD which works in DVD players. And I've got a comp next to the TV to watch my recorded movies.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[blugu64]

Well for me since I'm in college and have pretty limited space...having a tv tuner in the computer would save me a ton of space, with not having to have a tv/tv table and stuff. That's my main reason to wanting one.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[unitron]

"...unless you had your TV sitting right next to your computer."

Doesn't everyone?

Okay, technically mine's on a shelf right above my monitor, but still...

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> Any arguments of mobility ...

I have a tuner card on a desktop server. It records off satellite using an Actisys IR dongle to change channels.

With MythTV, you don't need a tuner card to be a client, so the server is the only thing plugged in. My wireless laptop can watch anywhere I can get a signal.

Additionally, one can transcode the MythTV recording (without commercials) onto a VCD, so I can still watch on a traditional TV if I want.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[xannik]

No definitely not everyone... I know a lot of people that have entertainment centers (with tv of course) and their desk is against the wall next to the wall the tv is against and so there back is to the tv and they have to look over there shoulder at it or at least turn to their right somewhat.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[notyou2]

I bought mine for one simple reason:

I use an LCD projector for my TV, and occasionally for computer stuff. I surf the web on a 100"-diagonal screen.

Since I stopped keeping a TV in my room when I bought this setup, I immediately wanted picture in picture while I was web browsing, so that I could watch TV at the same time. Voila... TV tuner card fit the bill perfectly.

(okay, not-so-simple)

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[EtherMonkey]

At my office, I have a local news/weather station running in a small window on my desktop. If the crawl at the bottom of the screen goes red, I know something important (usually a weather alert) is happening. I can warn my staff and clients of an impending risk (or, as is more often the case, make sure my car windows are rolled-up!). It's a useful source of information during a major news event or disaster.

Several of my clients are in the opinion survey/polling industry. It's always nice to see them on TV presenting the data I've helped to collect and analyze. It also helps me maintain a good relationship when I can honestly compliment them on their appearance and intelligently discuss their current projects.

As useful as the above might be, putting a small TV on my desk would not be acceptable. First of all, there's the space issue. I'm often running one or two notebooks and a desktop. Then there's a perception issue -- that I'm watching TV while everyone else is working -- which is not as readily apparent when the TV is a tiny window on the screen of a display facing away from my visitors.

I also live 2+ hours from work. I rent a room near my office, and the landlord includes a basic cable connection (alas, no broadband). I watch the evening news on my laptop, sometimes after watching a movie on DVD. A small TV with a DVD-player costs over $300. I already have the laptop, so the USB-TV device only added $70, and I don't leave anything important behind in case my room gets broken-into.

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, this is an interesting comment? It's like, what is toilet paper used for anyway? My parents always wipe my ass.
It's like this you fucking moron who is too busy to do a little background research before shitting himself in public --with a TV tuner and open source software you can have TIVO functionality for a tenth of the cost and no monthly fees.
Get it now you fucking crumb? I can't believe all the idiots in this thread talking about windows drivers. What the fuck is wrong with you people. Yeah, no shit windows drivers still suck as they always did. Uh huh. . . and?

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[soccerisgod]

I don't have the room for a tv :[

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[swankypimp]

How's this for geeky: I don't own a TV, so in order to watch the Discovery Channel I bought a PCI tuner. Geekier still: the seven fans in my rig made it impossible to hear the audio, so I wound up gettting an external tuner/signal converter (which I can plug into USB 2.0 when I want to capture). This lets me watch tv when the computer is quiet, i.e. turned off (Okay, I guess I lose geek points for turning my machine off).

Re:What are TV Tuners for?

[Anonymous Coward]

netcraft confirms: imagination is dying.

It used to be people would see an object and every person saw something different, a tool, a piece of art, something to wipe your ass, a weapon, or something simply to trip over.

now a days, people have to ask such basic questions on a forum called slashdot.

people used to celebrate the existance of useless electronic junk on slashdot as there was always someone who could find a use for it.

but times have changed, and even widely recognized items of utility are now questioned: "what's it good for"

the world as we know it...is coming to an end.

good bye slashdotters.

good bye mother earth.

you've been a nice host.

god bless, and go check out the sun before tomorrow nights supernova.

Depends...

[LighthouseJ]

I have a Hauppauge BT878 card I had in my desktop (got it before PVR-250/PVR-350). I got a laptop and a Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe, some people have bad experiences but I have had a pretty good time with it. I like the Pinnacle box because it records to MPEG-1 or 2 easily. Edit out commercials with Virtual Dub with MPEG-2 and you're all set to do what you need with it, encode to DivX, MPEG-x, whatever.

It just depends on what your needs are...

DScaler

[RonnyJ]

For anyone with a TV card, I recommend trying DScaler - it's open-source software which can filter and display video inputs, particularly from TV cards. I've been using it for the past four years, and it's far better than the TV viewing applications that came with my Hauppage WinTV card, or my friends Pinnacle PCTV card.

Re:DScaler

[Anonymous Coward]

And it also takes up a lot of CPU power. I can't surf and watch TV minimized any longer since Hauppauge used the de-interlacer drivers. Better picture, though.

Re:DScaler

[RonnyJ]

I've not really experienced any slowdown since Hauppauge incorporated some of the DScaler algorithms, but for those on lower-spec computers, it might be an idea to use DScaler 3.12, rather than the latest 4.19 as it seems to use significantly less CPU. I still have 3.12 installed for this reason.

Re:DScaler

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn off "Automatic Film/Video Detection" in the "Deinterlace" menu, turn off "Judder Elminator" in the same menu, and decrease "Pixel Width" from 720 to 480. Looks fine to me, drops usage from 80% to 30% on a 1.2GHz Athlon.

Re:DScaler

[hendridm]

Downloaded it. Installed it. Ran it. Selected my video source (which showed up black, even though it shows a channel in my other tuner software). Tried clicking the File menu to monkey with it, CRASHED AND BURNED.

Very nice indeed.

FWIW, I'm using a new XP install and my system is always very stable. Video card is an ATI AIW Radeon.

I recommend MyTV for viewing.

Re:What are TV Tuners for? SPACE

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in an 10x10 room. I don't have the space for a monitor AND a television. And you can make the TV program fullscreen.

i'm eyeballing this

[malus]

Mmmm. Must have more encoders. Mmmm. Linux MediaLabs

Better hurry...

[Insomnia]

...and get one you like quickly, before They implement the broadcast flag on everything and TV tuners become totally illegal. ;)

Re:Before choosing...

[Anonymous Coward]

why would you assume that linux support would be an issue? The poster didn't mention what platform they would want to run on, it was simply a usb vs pci solution.

Which has better Linux support......

[Anonymous Coward]

None do. Lame ass comment - RTFA. BTW, there are people who run OS X, XP, etc.

Re:Which has better Linux support......

[jdowland]

My SAA-based card from Medion works a treat. grab the drivers from bytesex and take your pick from the viewers. Recommended, tvtime.

Software sucks

[vurg]

I had used many tv-tuner cards (ati, leadtek, hauppage, and etc.) and one I thing I could generalize is that the software (drivers and tv proggie) for these cards suck. Almost all of them have these fancy UI that never conform to any standards or sometimes even common sense (what's up with the blinky lights in leadtek programs?). Also, the limited feature set for basic tivo-like functionality. I found a nice free program called DScaler (dscaler.org) that offers a lot of features for and it's compatible with most cards. It's still in beta the last time I checked though.

Re:Software sucks

[jsebrech]

Half a decade ago I bought a pci hauppauge wintv bt878-based card, and I'm still using it to this day. The windows apps that came with it sucked, and the upgrades to them sucked even worse, with UI's that seemed to be designed to be illogical on purpose, and channel switching that took more than a second. But in a linux machine, with tvtime (which uses dscaler in its backend), it's an awesome card. Super-smooth image, near-instantaneous channel switching, teletext (using alevt) and lirc-supported ir remote. Everyone who sees tvtime playing full screen for the first time comments on the great picture quality. My impression is that if you're going to buy a tv-card, better make sure it has a bt848/878 chipset.

Re:Software sucks

[ProKras]

This is one reason why I went with a completely external solution...straight from the Cable to VGA.

Hauppauge

[Barryke]

I once bought a Hauppauge WinTV Theather model 498.

It never worked, first no sound due to a buggy driver.
A few weeks later the thing just gave op on me and gave me noise-only.
Also, the FM radio never worked. Maybe i had bad luck, but i'll never buy a hauppage just to be sure.

Re:Hauppauge

[Kris_J]

I've got one of those old USB1.1 WinTV-USB devices kicking around somewhere. What's particularly surprising is that despite the low bitrate of the old USB standard, if you throw a lot of CPU time at it, the picture is quite smooth. Given that I bought a DTV-only PCI card, I should get the old Hauppauge up and running again.

Super external!

[ChupaThePirate]

If you just want a turner card to watch TV and not to capture anything how about a LCD with a TV turner that allows you to do PIP, many companies are making them now. http://www.viewsonic.com/products/tventertainment/ lcdtv/n1700w/

Re:Super external!

[Build6]

This looks cool - but I don't understand the specifications on their website. It says "native 1280x768" resolution at one point, and yet also says "displays up to 1280x1024". Which is it?? I don't think my video card supports the 1280x768 resolution, and I *really* don't want to read "super-widescreen text", i only like it for movies...

My 2 cents about Leadtek

[fatwreckfan]

Don't ever buy Leadtek. I had the 2000 XP tuner card, and had absolutely nothing but trouble with it. But it wasn't just me...two of my friends got the same card as well at the same time, as they were on sale, and had exactly the same problems as me.

First, the software sucks. 50% of the time the OSD doesn't work. I would regularly get the stereo channel out one speaker and the SAP channel out of the other. Sometimes I'd totally lose audio and have to reboot to fix it. While those are pretty minor problems, the absolute worst was recording. Basically, it never worked. I would depend on the software to record courses I was taking that were broadcast on my university's cable channel, and most of the time it down right didn't record anything. I totally gave up on it. And this wasn't just an issue with one version of their PVR software...this was a problem in every version I tried over the two or more years I had that card. The customer support was atrocious...basically they didn't ever answer my, or my friends, questions about the failing recording. And I won't even get into the horrible sound effects during the software installation, or the stupid blinking (!!) lights around the border of the viewing window.

Then I wanted to get Snapstream's software, because it looked really sweet. Guess what...Leadtek refused to help them resolve issues they had with their cards, so Snapstream couldn't support the Leadtek cards at all. Finally I broke down, spent the money on one of the Snapstream bundles that came with a PCI Hauppauge! card, and have had no problems at all with it.

So my advice is avoid Leadtek at all costs.

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[avageek]

Don't ever buy Leadtek

Think you should rephrase that as "don't ever by Leadtek TV tuners for using on windows". I got one way back and built it with a linux box and haven't had any major problems using it with mythTV. Saw the bundled software and was tempted to try it out to see how well it worked...but then just figured it was cheap "bundle" softare and dismissed it. Leadtek is in the business to sell hardware. They included the crappy software the entice you and you're discovering that it sucks. That's no shocker since I remember paying $40 bucks for the thing. Can't have it all.

Although, a word of warning when using these cards with linux. The default BTTV driver setting is for PAL, and you have to either pass the option to set it to NTSC when loading the module or re-comple the driver with the correct setting (easy one line code change).

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah yeah yeah. There is a horror story out there for every piece of hardware/software. Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it's crap.

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[Hrodvitnir]

I have the Leadtek Winfast 2000XP, running on my Windows 2000 box. Works fine for me. I agree the blinking lights around the border are annoying, but those go away if you maximize the display.

Of course, my cable provider has a weak signal now, so if I want my cable internet, I can't split into my tuner, so I spent the $45 for nothing right now.

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[rsmith-mac]

FYI, the SAP problem was fixed nearly a year ago.

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[Kris_J]

Is "VisionPlus" or "VisionDTV" Leadtek? The software for my card is flakey as hell. Luckily the point wasn't to turn my TV into a TiVo, but to keep an eye on digital TV in Australia to see when it gets to a point worth buying something decent to watch it with.

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[m00nun1t]

I've had one for 18 months or so. Had absolutely no problems with it at all. Put the card in, installed the software from the CD, haven't needed to make any changes since, it just works (and I use it a lot).

YMMV...

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[gjash]

My experience with Leadtek tv tuners has been the opposite! I have found their software much better than the other popular bundled software. I went through a tv tuner testing phase and they all sucked except Leadtek! YMMV!! Haha...

Re:My 2 cents about Leadtek

[fatwreckfan]

Agreed...in linux I had good luck with it, and TVTime is nice software to use with it, but I didn't ever get recording to work for some reason...

If they want to include crappy software, go for it. But like I said in my original post they REFUSED to help Snapstream fix the problems they had so the Snapstream software would work with it, so effectively they're forcing me to use said crappy software in Windows.

Which Firewire tuner is best for a new Powerbook ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that ALL the USB tuners are no good.

Does anyone with a Powerbook have a recommendation ?

What's stopping me from buying one of these

[foidulus]

is that, as far as I know(please correct me if I am wrong), you really can't play consoles on it since the cards have a 1.5 second or so delay from when the video comes in to when you see it. Obviously this is fine for television, but not so hot for gaming.
I am a college student who will easily move 2-3 times in the next 2 years, so I really would prefer not to have a seperate TV(the G5 weighs enough as it is). I love the gamecube because it is easy to get a bunch of friends together to sit around drinking playing Mario Kart or Super Monkey Ball or Mario Party(yeah I know, they are childish, but still a hell of a lot of fun). Somewhat harder to do that with PC games.
While I am delaying my purchase of a monitor till the WWDC(Apple is supposedly going to release new, cheaper monitors. I'm holding off on buying a G5 till i see what they have, the student developer discount makes them affordable), it seems that I will buy an LCD monitor/tv combo. You can't record with them, but you can plug your gamecube in fine.

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[geekoid]

I used one for console gaming about 3 year ago, and it worked fine. it was a Haupauge. It's gone now, so I can't give you anymore information.

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[bedouin]

as far as I know(please correct me if I am wrong), you really can't play consoles on it since the cards have a 1.5 second or so delay from when the video comes in to when you see it.

This is true with Firewire or USB TV devices; PCI ones are fine. For your Mac, take a look at this card. I bought the DVR version in January and its been relatively good (the software annoys me sometimes). Like you, I also have a Gamecube, and used it pretty regularly with the Alchemy card.

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[Mattintosh]

Here's a better option... It's cheaper and less susceptible to broken components.

Get any LCD monitor. Any size will do. Any size above 1280x1024 will probably be wasted. Just make sure it has at least one VGA input.

Then get a Viewsonic NextVision N6. Any and all video games and playback devices can route through that box to your computer monitor. It supports non-passthrough signals up to 1280x1024. Obviously, a VGA passthrough will be whatever you're sending without alteration. There's no perceptible delay for games, and it doesn't suffer the same color problems as the older VB50HRTV (which would make extreme white into black and vice versa).

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[Osty]

is that, as far as I know(please correct me if I am wrong), you really can't play consoles on it since the cards have a 1.5 second or so delay from when the video comes in to when you see it. Obviously this is fine for television, but not so hot for gaming.

That's only true for cards that do mpeg2 compression, like the Hauppage PVR-n50 line. The delay is similar to what you'd see from a Tivo or similar box that encodes to mpeg2 on the fly for recording purposes. Analog tuners that don't do any encoding should have no lag, either.

That said, why would you want to run a console through a TV tuner to play it on your monitor in the first place? I'll assume you're referring to the recent generation of consoles (PS2, XBox, GameCube, and Dreamcast). All of these either have component output (PS2, XBox, GC) or the ability to give a direct VGA output (Dreamcast, with a little hackery). Given that, for the price of a decent TV tuner, you can buy boxes that will do the proper conversion from YPrPb signals to RGBHV VGA (the cheap ones are little more than YPrPb->RGBHV transcoders, which works fine for any progressive scan output; the better, more expensive ones actually do 3-2 pulldown/line doubling to convert interlaced signals into a progressive scan signal suitable for a monitor).

If you want to play older consoles that only have S-vid or composite (or RF, gasp!) output, you're in for more work. Some have been hacked to output VGA video (search google), and others will need an analog tuner (stay away from the digital tuners as mentioned above -- a side effect of this is that you can find a good tuner for cheap). Alternatively, you could just buy a GBA SP and get most of that classic gaming in a handheld format (many NES, SMS, Genesis, and SNES classics have been either re-released, updated, or sequelized on the GBA).

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[GlassHeart]

For your Mac, take a look at this card. I bought the DVR version in January and its been relatively good (the software annoys me sometimes).

I have the G4/G5 version, and it's good value for the money. I won't actually watch TV on it, because the software takes a second or two to switch from channel to channel. I bought it to archive old video tapes, and my 733 MHz PowerMac G4 will not always do it flawlessly at the highest resolution, even without trying to compress the output in real time. (When it "fails", it captures the video at 15 fps rather than 30 fps, which is unacceptable for my purposes.) What I can say, however, is that their tech support is highly responsive, including direct email exchanges with their driver developer although they were not able to solve the problem for me. Note also that the audio input is not compatible with Garage Band (which requires a 44.1 KHz input.)

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[Fwoggus]

Why not get a gamecube emulator and some USB controllers for your Mac?

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[foidulus]

Why not get a gamecube emulator and some USB controllers for your Mac?
Because:
a) Roms are hard to find and of dubious nature
b) I want to play 4 players, I could get a USB hub, but there would be a lot more wires.
c) I don't want to chew up my cpu while I am playing a game, part of the reason I am getting a G5 is that for my research, I need to plow through very large data sets, why would I waste my resources on an emulator?

Re:What's stopping me from buying one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 3 PCI tv console cards (well 4, but one partially died).

Not all PCI ones are fine. You were talking Mac, but on the PC, the PVR250 and 350 play the encoded file as it is created, so there is a delay. The video stream is captured, encoded, saved, and then played back via WMP or what have you. Both models are PCI cards.

I forget if this is an issue with the original Hauppauge PVR card (non 250 or 350 model), but that model had an issue that it did not capture the full video stream (702 pixels versus 720; you can see this effect on tuner cards for the monster tv/monitor setups such as 29 series NetTVs).

Basically, if the PCI card has onboard mpeg encoding hardware, there is a delay. Generally you are right though, as cards like the Hauppauge WinTV Theater do not have such a delay (the Theater card does not encode in hardware to a compressed format like mpeg).

In or Out, who cares but can your descramble....

[Anonymous Coward]

through software? Or more exact, in other words, does the descrambler software support your TV tuner's chipset?

DScaler-Winware.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a Windows app only.

Re:DScaler-Winware.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tvtime.sf.net

Re:DScaler-Winware.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but is is released under the GPL.

Re:DScaler-Winware.

[Anonymous Coward]

bah, stupid sf

http://tvtime.sf.net/

Are TV tuners becoming obsolete?

[bob65]

With the apparent growth of digital cable and satellite, can TV tuners even be used in the future? It's nice to have a custom tivo-type PC that you can do anything with, but would that be possible a few years from now?

Re:Are TV tuners becoming obsolete?

[smcavoy]

Well TV tuners can be used in the "future" if the "future" has RF based cable.
Last time I checked *a lot* more people have RF cable and not digital cable. I doubt that it will disapear any time soon. Even 10 years from now you'll probably be able to use your 30+ year old TV.

Re:Are TV tuners becoming obsolete?

[DeepRedux]

The is a new standard called CableCard. It is a PC card that fits into new "digital cable ready" TVs and replaces the converter box. As I understand it, this card will contain the security handling that is now done by the digital cable set-top box. The launch date is supposed to be in two weeks (July 1). I see no reason these could not fit into a PCI-based tuner card.

See this USA Today story for more details.

Re:Are TV tuners becoming obsolete?

[no_such_user]

I can't imagine that either broadcasters, content owners (tv studios), or the MPAA would allow something like CableCard to be implemented without the ability to prevent exactly what you're talking about. I'm all for recording a direct digital cable stream (that's why I'm recording the unencrypted QAM signal - see www.dvico.com), but it's just not likely that we'll have the option in a few years. Face it - once analog broadcasting goes away, so does our ability to record.

Re:Are TV tuners becoming obsolete?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why you can't use a tuner card with digital cable or satellite. The reciever box still has to connect to a TV, and a tuner card will have all the same inputs. A digital cable box will output to the TV with coax, RCA, or S-video, and any TV tuner card should be able to handle at least one of those.

And as for tivo-like stuff, I'm sure someone will come up with a way for the computer to control the cable box to tune it to the right channel for recording. Probably an IR emitter with a USB connection to the computer, although my digital cable reciever has a USB port on it (for unknown reasons. The manual doesn't mention it)

Re:#1

[sigaar]

What's the point of FP if you do it anonymously?

Way to go /.

[KarmaMB84]

This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

Nice :O

Re:Way to go /.

[herrvinny]

At least it's a whole lot faster this way ;-)

Re:Way to go /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they give you 50GB/month of transfer. (As long you don't actually use it.) Even slashdot effect could not have used up 50GB of bandwidth in mere minutes. :) Especially since most people are still trying to get the star trek stuff to download. :) Anyhow they most likely thought it was under DDOS, so they suspended it.

Oh well your site finally succeeds in finding that much larger audience to get you more ad dollars, and your host hosses you. :( Must be fun. Oh well, you get what you pay for, and I always though those $7.50/month for 50GB of bandwidth deals were too good to be true, and here is the proof.

just my few cents :>>--

P.S.: The site did look OK, especially as far as reviews sites go, at least the parts i saw before they went black.

I must agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I own a Leadtek 601fm and its a pain in the ass to get the sound even in windows, and forget about using it on NT5.0+

Re:Before choosing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need Linux support for a TV tuner? You gunna stream it over Apache to Windows and PSX clients? Karma whoring bitch, Linux sucks.

TV tuner with Linux app...

[Yaa 101]

I have a hauppauge pci bttv 878 for years...
It does what it must do...

I can recommend TVTime http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/ under Linux for optimum pleasure as you can adapt to footballgames...

Re:TV tuner with Linux app...

[Anonymous Coward]

And with XMLTV support built-in, it's an even better application than just a TV tuner!

in the UK, TV license evasion

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to watch TV in the UK you have to pay UKP100 or so a year. This funds the BBC.
If you don't pay but still have a TV the licensing agency will pick up the characteristic 50hz EM emission from your TV with one of their nifty detectors (nowadays they can tell what channel you're watching from quite a distance), and you will pay a large fine.
If, however, you use a TV card and display it though your PC monitor, they can't detect your use of the TV signal. If you do this, it's not a good idea to leave your PC (with giveaway aerial) visible from the street.

Site Text in case it gets Slashdotted

[toupsie]

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

Not really a good review if you ask me. Kind of light on content and really doesn't discuss the benefits of internal vs. external TV encoders.

Re:Site Text in case it gets Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

it wasn't suspended till after it got /.'ed, there is some decent content there(though the layout kind of sucked, I hate having to hit "next page")

Re:Site Text in case it gets Slashdotted

[ari_j]

Although the AC sibling to this reply didn't get the joke, I thought it was pretty darn funny. :)

Hauppage PVR-250/350

[monopole]

A little pricey but well worth it, they generate excellent capture of video and encode in MPEG-2 in hardware. Very nice, and they make an excellent PVR when combined with SageTv or MythTv. They also incorporate an integrated IR remote. They have a good linux support particularly with regard to MythTV. The PVR-350 differs from the PVR-250 in that it has a S-Video output. I've also employed a Leadtek XP 2000 video capture card, nice but no hardware recording. I've had difficulty in recording the output of the LeadTek to DVD.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[SanLouBlues]

The Hauppage Remote is hardly a feature. They gave no attention to ergonomics and apparently never saw a remote for a TV or a VCR before setting out to design those pieces of junk. Not only that, the driver under Windows stinks, rendering my dual boot far less useful. My bro's ATI remote is so nice in comparison, I'm considering sacrificing the Linux support of the Hauppage for the niceness of the ATI.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[bn557]

there have been success stories of using any old universal remote with the hauppage remote under linux. Also, those cheapie remotes are actually a 'standard' remote that many homebrew products use. They're incredibly cheap, and the buttons on them are 'customizable' in that you can get the case cut to only use 10 or 40 buttons(and some arbitrary numbers in between I'm sure). I have a FlyVideo98 bttv card and I used the remote that came with it for a while, but gave up and built a serial IR receiver and grabbed a sony dvd remote at a flea market for $2. Works great with mythtv.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[karnal]

I was thinking about buying one of these two cards, but I really need one question answered:

How does it sound?

By that I mean, does the sound have a high pitched whine to it, or is it properly filtered so that I don't have to cringe every time I attempt to watch something I recorded off the air?

Currently, if I want to capture something for good, I run it through a VCR to get the audio and video into the card, thus negating the need for a "tuner-capture" card. Does the 250 and 350 do sound "better"?

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

From my now-year-and-a-half of PVR-250 ownership, I can surely say that the sound coming through it is simply fantastic. There is no trace of any high-pitched whine. One of the reasons I purchased it was because it lacked said whine that so many TV Tuner cards have (It's a range of sound I am extremely sensitive to and gets on my nerves faster than anything else in the known world).

If you are running windows, though, beware. The drivers for both the PVR-250 and the PVR-350 are disgustingly bad. a friend and I have had far too many problems on a grand total of *six* different computers, two of which it just plain failed to work on. But while I have not tried it, supposedly everything is simply dandy when operated under MythTV in linux.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

the ati usb remote is probably the best remote for linux. supported directly by the latest 2.6 kernels.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that I've seen some reports of whining (or was it whining about whining?) but not noticed anything myself, and my hearing goes farther up the spectrum that most people's.

I set up MythTV because the local programming geniuses put the only shows we ever watch regularly on an 3 in the morning and I'm hopeless about overwriting videotapes half-viewed. It's been great except for the current program with mythfilldatabase. Only complaint about the PVR-250 is that apparently there's no timestamps on the audio, so you have to be careful about settings or you'll lose A/V sync.

OTOH, I'm ROYALLY PO'd at ATI. Back before I got a standalone video player, I'd play DVDs on my PC and beam them to the TV using one of those X-10 2.4 GHz links. The old TV-out card doesn't work properly on the new system, so I bought an ATI Padeon 9200.

The #$%#$@@##%!!! thing has censorship built in. It'll beam anything on the computer screen EXCEPT the captured TV broadcast. That just comes out as "blue-screen". I'm told that this is something MacroVision rammed down ATI's throat and it invalidates the whole reason for purchasing the card.

I'm about to help my wife build a new system. Guess whose video products won't be in it?

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[an_mo]

how does it look on tv? I am thinking of buying a 350 just for pvr purposes but I wouldn't want to watch the show on the pc monitor.

Re:Hauppage PVR-250/350

[karnal]

Actually, that just sounds like your video overlays were not displaying properly on the screen. I've noticed this with a dual monitor setup on NVidia cards - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

You'd think Video Card Voodoo would be a thing of the past - kinda like 3dfx (I know, I know, bad joke...)

Wonderful PVR

[novalogic]

I've seen arguments about the TV Turner and why bother.... to be honest, they work great. A program GotTVPVR http://www.gottvpvr.com turns your computer into a TiVo for free. The program guide service is free, it downloads, and once some of the bugs are worked out, the system will handle everything from images, to MP3s, to recording every episode of Farscape automaticly.

There are many brands out there, but I like the ATI EHome Wonder. Its _very_ cheap, zero support, onboard MPEG2 encoder, low profile (very small card) and works with every system I've tried (havn't tried MacOSX yet, but it works on Linux with some tweeking)

As for "computer monitors suck compaired to my XX inch TV" argument...

uhhh, S-Video? 99% of video cards come with a TV hookup of some sort, and some even support 16:9 ratio for those of us lucky bastards with a wide HDTV.

Can TiVo burn you DVDs of your recorded shows? Some can... but they won't make SVCDs.

If you got the time, you can make a better PVR out of your computer then you can out of a TiVo, the hardware and software has a little ways to go, but within 12 months....

Besides, dose your TiVo have a 500gb SCSI raid array? :)

cheers

Re:Wonderful PVR

[Anonymous Coward]

a 500gb SCSI raid array?

A 500gb (gramme-bit?) SCSI redundant array of inexpensive/independent disks array? You sure you shouldn't add an extra "redundant" in there somewhere? ;)

Re:Wonderful PVR

[Hektor_Troy]

Well, if it has either FireWire 800, FireWire or USB 2.0, it could have a 1 TB disk.

That's almost 247 hours of recording at 9 Mb/second (DVD).

Would it work with my computer ?

[Solosoft]

I have a Dual Pentium Pro 200MHz Computer. It has a 32mb GeForce 2MX 400 in it (the card is broken so the nvidia drivers won't work. I did manage to get it to work by underclocking it 10MHz and only using the nv drivers provided by X. It seems to work well now). It has 192mb of RAM and a 17" Monitor. Would one of those cards be able to work quickly and well... fast enough to watch full screen TV. Since my TV is only a small 13 inch I want to use my computer to watch it since the screen is bigger (and nicer).

So could I watch full screen tv smoothly ... or is it outa the option for my old PPro ?

Re:Would it work with my computer ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Since my TV is only a small 13 inch I want to use my computer . . ."

If you can afford a TV tuner card, you can afford to buy a TV.

In fact, if you go down to your local Goodwill Store, Salvation Army, or other thrift shop, you will find a whole lot of nice TVs for $10 to $20. Go down there and grab a nice used 24 inch model for $15, bring it home, and relax with the big dogs.

Re:Would it work with my computer ?

[jdowland]

probably not. I had quite a lot of trouble on my AMD K6-2 450. It takes a significant amount of my CPU on my current machine (2500XP, however fast that is)

Re:Would it work with my computer ?

[Solosoft]

You have NO clue what I make this machine do ;)

A - It hosts my ever so unpopular website - www.solosoft.org
B - It hosts my DNS for my ever so unpopular website - www.solosoft.org
C - It hosts a BIG Gallery with over 500 images - Gallery
D - It runs Windowmaker
E - It Runs a Mail Server
F - It Runs a news server
G - It runs a IRCD (irc.solosoft.org)
H - SSH

Why have a machine idle ? Mas well have it do somthing. I have 5 fans in there and it keeps cool enough.

Re:Would it work with my computer ?

[Solosoft]

One small problem

EDO SIMMS

Re:Would it work with my computer ?

[mrbcs]

I ran an ati aiw 8 meg on a second system (p200) for a couple years. Used it to watch hockey games when wifey wouldn't let me near the 27" ;-) I had the second monitor beside my main one. Only reason that I didn't put the card right in my system was that the tv wouldn't work on the second display. I even ran it on win 95 but didn't try capturing. Was a great tv though.

ATI 256 All Wonder and a Cinema Display

[thedogcow]

I'm waiting for the ATI 256 All In Wonder card for the mac platform... connecting that to a 23 inch Cinema Display would be heavenly.

Re:#1

[Aardpig]

What's the point of FP if you do it anonymously?

To provoke couch-jockeys like yourself?

Avoid ATI at all costs

[gopherd00d]

I have an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV, and it has never worked as advertised. The drivers in the box only sort of worked and were very flaky. After upgrading to the latest Catalyst drivers off their web site, it now mostly works under Windows, but the ATI software is difficult to use and quite feature-poor. Linux support is virtually non-existent. When you can actually get the card and software to work, the image quality and tuner quality is quite good, but it's totally not worth the trouble. I'm now in the process of switching to a GeForce FX video card with a separate Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350 tuner card (with hardware MPEG encoder/decoder). From what I've read in various HTPC forums, this card is hands-down the best PC tuner card on the market. It also is fully supported by SageTV on the PC side and MythTV on the Linux side. I will never buy another ATI product.

Re:Avoid ATI at all costs

[Jafafa Hots]

I have an AIW 7500, same thing - love it kinda, but the ATI drivers have always sucked and I've never gotten it to work 100% successfully.

I have it now installed on a new PC and every time I try to watch TV the video display freaks and I have to reboot.

I've given up.

Somewhat Late for such a question...

[tintruder]

Isn't it?

After all analog is on the way out and HDTV is on the way in.

Virtually all of the Analog tuners work just fine. Not necessarily great, but fine. The only recent issue with analog tuners being whether they are XP-MCE compatible.

HDTV is where the action is. And whole there are various OTA and DBS solutions, the "Holy Grail" of PC HDTV Tuners appears to be QAM tuning so they can work on digital cable.

Several manufacturers are trying and none are succeeding, mainly because they either do not have the correct HDTV Tuner chipsets (mfrs. won't sell to them), or they have the right chipsets but they do not have the right SDKs and have to reverse-engineer them to make the tuners function.

Odd considering that several TV makers have introduced DigitalCableReady HDTVs with CableCARD slots yet the PC Tuner makers can't get basic QAM tuning to work.

HDTV tuners on PCs ought to be the discussion here. Analog has been mature for several years.

Re:Somewhat Late for such a question...

[EtherMonkey]

I'm old school. I'll upgrade to HDTV when the equipment and service costs the same as I'm paying now. I'm not paying an extra $500 for an HDTV monitor plus an extra $10/month to watch a handful of channels. Maybe, if I decide to get a bigger screen (more than the 36-inch I have now) for watching DVD's I'll go for 720p. How much image quality do I need to watch Cialis and Hair Club for Men commercials?

90% of the time, the 320x240 TV window on my laptop is more than sufficient resolution for the quality of programming available. And even the least-expensive USB 1.1 tuners work well at that size.

Elgato EyeTV 400 and 200 rock

[Kunt]

They have Firewire interfaces and actually work very reliably. But only for Mac OS X Panther.

Nice if you can get with firewire

[pvera]

But not exactly enough to lose sleep over, the cheapest piece of crap TV tuner card still looks as good as a $100 TV.

I had a Hauppaugge WinTV PCI back in my Windows days, which was also back when I telecommuted a lot. I would keep a small TV window with Discovery Wings blasting all day and that kept me awake for 10-15 hour days. On 9/11 that card helped me take screen captures for my friends that were stuck at work and while the news websites were saturated, so at least they could see stills from the news coverage.

Now I am on a mac, so if possible I would shoot for something with firewire or USB 2 instead of USB1.

Re:Nice if you can get with firewire

[Anonymous Coward]

"Discovery Wings blasting all day and that kept me awake for 10-15 hour days."

Now _that_ needs some explanation.

Re:Nice if you can get with firewire

[pvera]

10-15 hours/day working from my home office, with half-hour naps every 4 hours or so.

I got bored with my music really quick, and both the video music channels and the digital music channels in cable use a rotation that is so short that halfway thru the day I was seeing/listening to the exact same stuff. With Discovery Wings (plus Hitler Channel) at least I would have something more varied. Worst case scenario it provided good background noise, plus the british accents of most of the documentary narrators sort of put you in a trance.

Most of my employees did it too, they were happier working 12-15 hours from home than working 8 at the office.

maybe somebody wants to read this..

[virtualone]

i got the first page of the Transcend review caught in my browser cache..
maybe somebody got the other 2 pages??
___

With all of the products available to make your computer seem less like a desktop tool and more like a high end media center, one of the components that lacks the popularity you might expect is the TV tuner card. There are sound cards capable of 7.1 channel stereo, high powered speaker systems, AGP cards displaying on big screen monitors/televisions, and broadband internet for streaming media. But, what about one more entertainment goodie for your computer? The Transcend TV-Box USB 2.0 TV Tuner is an external TV tuner that will allow any couch potato with a computer to ditch the couch while still enjoying TV.

TV tuners aren't anything new, and even external devices such as this have been around for a few years. The feature of the Transcend TV-Box that got my attention right away was support for USB 2.0. I have previously been disappointed by the performance of a USB 1.1 tuner, and I am hoping the high speed interface of USB 2.0 makes a world of difference. A highly capable TV tuner in a compact USB 2.0 enclosure would be a perfect addition to a home theater pc, the typical desktop computer, and unlike a PCI based card, any laptop computer.

Features (as taken from the Transcend website):

Video Input Resolution up to 720*480 at 30 fps for NTSC.
Video Input Resolution up to 720*576 at 25 fps for PAL.
Full TV Channels.
USB 2.0 Supported, Plug and Play Compliant.
S-Video, Composite Video input, stereo audio line in and TV RF input.
IR Remote Control.
Power Consumption from USB with no power adaptor required.
Recording from TV or external video sources directly to hard drive.
Real-time MPEG 1 or 2 compression, and VCD/DVD file format supported.
Time-Shifting.
Multi-Channel Preview.
Pre-scheduled TV Recording.
Desktop or Laptop with USB 2.0 interface.
System memory 128 MB or above.
Windows XP (recommended), Windows 2000.
2-year Warranty.

Specification:

Size: 154mm x 84mm x 39mm (L x W x H)
Operating Temperature: 0C(32F) to 45C(113F)
Weight: 195g

System Requirements:

Desktop or laptop with USB 2.0 interface
CPU PIII 800 MHz for viewing; PIII 1 GHz for VCD recording; P4 1.7 GHz for DVD recording
System memory 128 MB or above
Windows XP (recommended), Windows 2000

The Transcend TV-Box USB 2.0 is sold in the retail packaging pictured in the images below. The front of the box (below left) provides a few features of the device, while the back of the box (below right) goes into much greater detail in several different languages.

Click Image for Larger View Click Image for Larger View

With the box opened up, the main items of interest are the TV tuner itself and the remote control unit. The below left image provides a first look at the TV tuner, which is a sleek black plastic device with a red lensed area housing a few status LEDs as well as allowing for the IR remote's signal to be received. The below right image shows the remote control which features all the buttons necessary to operate the TV and recording functions of the TV-Box. Both items are quite compact, with the tuner measuring roughly 5.5" x 3.25" x 1.5" inches and the remote being slightly longer than a credit card and not all that much thicker.

Click Image for Larger View Click Image for Larger View

The remote control receives power via a slim watch style battery, and the tuner itself receives power via a USB cable. The below left image shows the side of the TV-Box with 3 connectors; 1/8" stereo jack output, USB jack for video/signal, and a DC power jack for use on USB. In addition there is a button for taking still image "snaps" that are saved to your hard drive. The below right image shows the rear of the device where the coaxial cable connection and A/V-in can be found.

Click Image for Larger View Click Image for Larger View

T

As mentioned in the last story about TV tuners

[bersl2]

pcHDTV

Doesn't work with cable or satellite (not sure if this is a hardware or driver limitation) but can decode both NTSC and HDTV. Completely open platform, so completely open drivers.

Make sure it has hardware encoding

[Riskable]

There's two types of TV tuners out for PCs right now: Those with hardware encoders, and those without

The cheap ones (usually under $50) do not come with hardware encoders.

Hardware encoders (usually MPEG2) look superior and are generally smoother, taking the load off your CPU. Do not assume that since you have quad-processor super PC that it's enough to output great/smooth video. A hardware MPEG2 encoder is still superior.

As for internal VS external, there's a few USB 2.0 tuners with built-in hardware encoders, but none of them work in Linux. You're better off getting a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 (or 350 if you need TV-out) and sticking it in a MythTV Linux box... The current king of Tivo-like software.

Re:Make sure it has hardware encoding

[bedouin]

Hardware encoders (usually MPEG2) look superior and are generally smoother, taking the load off your CPU. Do not assume that since you have quad-processor super PC that it's enough to output great/smooth video. A hardware MPEG2 encoder is still superior.

Unless of course you want to play video games through your TV tuner, then encoding of any kind becomes undesirable, since it creates enough delay to make every game unplayable.

Re:Make sure it has hardware encoding

[nbdy]

Linux support most Bt8x8 chips based TV tuner

I got the full text! Here it is!

[Anonymous Coward]

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

Re:I got the full text! Here it is!

[virtualone]

just FYI the server is back up..

one cable for internet & tv @ same time ?

[kiwipeso]

Is there a way you could set it up to surf the net and watch cable TV on the computer ? What would be good if there was a cable modem that also had a TV decoder built in.

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[account_deleted]

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No Delay

[dwyers2]

I'm watching on my ATI all-in-wonder side by side with a tv and there is no delay. Yeah, I know, it makes no sense to have a card if you have a tv right next to your pc. I can play ps2 on the TV and watch TV on the computer though. I rarely ever use it but its just fun to have I guess. Monkey Ball is the greatest game of all time.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

default apache page…

[kiwipeso]

please post this porn that you talk of.

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[account_deleted]

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Known issue

[KalvinB]

The audio problem happens when you have Norton installed. There's a patch for it.

I picked up one of those cards for my dad so he could digitize old movies. It worked perfectly after he figured out it was a bug and not a hardware problem. He actually returned the card and got a replacement before going on-line to try to sort out the problem.

I've digitized a number of VHS tapes in 640x480 30FPS at I think 1Mbps MPEG compression without a hicup with his 3 Ghz machine.

I highly recommend the card. At $60 you can't beat the price/quality.

My old Hauppauge WinTV card can only do any worthwhile recording quality when using Virtual Dub. The included software is terrible.

Ben

Re:Known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I've digitized a number of VHS tapes in 640x480 30FPS at I think 1Mbps MPEG compression without a hicup with his 3 Ghz machine.

It would've been more intelligent to cap those at 704x480 / 720x480 or, since they're VHS, 352x480 in DVD-compliant MPEG2 format.

Then you could've moved the video straight to DVD for long-term archival.

Re:Known issue

[kryptkpr]

My old Hauppauge WinTV card can only do any worthwhile recording quality when using Virtual Dub. The included software is terrible.

Agreed.

I own one of these cards, and the included software is only good for one thing: watching TV. VirtualDUB does a great job with it though.. I could do 15fps 320x240 caps into 1mbit divx5 .. on a P3-500! (Why 15fps? I was mostly capping cartoons for a ripping group, which don't need the extra frame rate anyway)

PS: Not that I suggest you use a P3-500 for an encoding machine, give it at least 800mhz so you don't loose the odd frame, and much more then that if you plan on using a higher resolution or a better codec. And get yourself a good, fast UltraATA drive.

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[account_deleted]

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High End

[Tesko]

For the high-end of tv tuners, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 is the champion. Linkie

external

[binarybum]

well, I'm curious to see what the review says, but I can't because the server is /.ed. However, I have used an Aver brand "TVgenie" extneral box now for six years now and it's great. No Drivers, no software, the computer doesn't even have to be on. It's just a tuner with a VGA pass-through. I've seen so many issues with the early tuner TV cards and the quality often stunk. This thing is great. It lacks fancy features like screen shots and video rips or the ability to watch TV in a window while doing something else, but it does everything a television does and eliminates the need for me to have one. Also since it requires no system resources, I can be rendering at full speed or switch back to a game of unreal during commercials without sacraficing any performance.

What are TV Tuners for?-CC

[Anonymous Coward]

"b) to convert my old VHS recordings into a digital medium; share/backup them, etc."

Unfortunately you lose the Closed Captioning.

this is why i ditched my HTPC

[vena]

i have digital cable here, and the complete lack of digital-ready tuner cards made having a home theatre pc a huge pain. since the card can't change channels, tivo-alike features are mostly useless. plus the annoyance of having to use two remotes or one of those big OneBox remotes to have IR and RF in one remote.

Re:this is why i ditched my HTPC

[enrico_suave]

you may have given in, too early...

you can control your digital box via serial cable (in some cases, notably certain motorolla boxes) or via IR blaster (the same way my "real" tivo controls my Scientific atlanta digital cable box right now...)

*shrug* ymmv, but it is possible... although htpc aren't for everyone...

e.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

2nd that!

[chocolatetrumpet]

Same card here - worked almost as advertised, however the 9 driver installs took 7 reboots - rediculous. DVD decoding failed.. I needed to use the software player that came with my dvd drive.

The "breakout box" has very fragile pins that, if you are not careful and pull it out at an angle, the pins will bend and you will have to bend them back by hand (pain in the butt). Also, my computer freezes when the cable is removed or plugged in.

In sum, I wish I had gotten an external tuner instead.

testing things

[Anonymous Coward]

send spam to scriptkiddies@gmail.com

send now! anything and everything. sign it up for lists.

Wrong buy internal PCI

[js3]

I know it doesn't sound too hip but the internal ones are the best. With external ones there is a bit of a lag since the signal has to be processed and then sent to the pci. You may think interference is probably more on the PCI but having tried both it doesn't seem to matter at all. You just need a really good cable to avoid the signal problems. If you want something convienent you can move around with then external is good but PCI is always better for performance.

New review site?

[solid_liq]

This is what I was wondering when I saw this article was on some tech review site I had never heard of before. I then wondered more about this when I saw they were only reviewing two pieces of hardware for this category.

I then decided to read the reviews. Lo and behold, less than twenty minutes after this posting on slashdot, and the site had already succumb to the "Slashdot effect."

Conclusion: Small, new site indeed.

I wonder if there will be any mirrors for this site, since the web hosting company already suspended this account for reasons of bandwidth restrictions.

3rd that!

[chocolatetrumpet]

Sorry, I forgot to mention another critical issue - the video quality (analog) is noticably blurrier than my many year old Matrox G450.

I'm thinking of just putting the Matrox back in there...

I'm so pissed off.

[jb.hl.com]

I'm not buying another TV tuner, as my last one (Modular Technologies MM215) doesn't work with any versions of Windows past 98, or even Linux. Well, it does, but there's no plug to connect the card to the audio, so you need to use the Windows 98 drivers to get the sound directly out of the card through the PCI bus. So annoying.

Re:Before choosing...

[Trejkaz]

WTF, how is this a troll? This is exactly what I would do too, if I needed a TV tuner.

Account Suspended

[cmacb]

NEVER submit articles to Slashdot just to bump up your site statistics. Unless of course you have made financial arrangements with your hosting provider first.

in my experience...

[enrico_suave]

any card that relies on software encoding has been problematic and junky...

I've had good luck so far with hardware encoding tuner cards (hauppauge wintv pvr250/350 both internal pci cards) YMMV of course.

PArt of the challenge is finding the right hardware to match with your software/os choice (or vice versa) little bit of a chicken and egg versa vice decision process...

*Shrug*

e.

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[account_deleted]

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am I...

[perlchild]

the only one who misses "reviews" that covered 5 or more competing products at once, especially in the "internal vs external" categories? How can you tell which is a product defect, and which is an advantage of internal vs external, with such limited testing?

OpenBSD recommendation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any OpenBSD user using any external tv in?

If so, which one are you using?

Form factor

[BillyBlaze]

One thing to consider before getting an internal PCI tuner is the form factor. I had a bad experience, though I'm not sure if it was the card or my case at fault. The RF jack was too near the top of the card, so it was impossible to put it in before assaulting my case with a pair of tinsnips. So there's something to be said for an external tuner - though the drivers may not be as mature.

Software is bad.

[antdude]

Good hardware, but their driver and software support is buggy and bad in my experience. :(

Get the good cards, don't buy the cheap ones

[rben]

We had a cheap ATI Wonder VE, six weeks afeter we got it there were problems. The sound was breaking up and the picture would go dark about 3/4 of the way through hour long recordings. I wasn't impressed.

I've now purchased a PVR-250 and a PVR-350, made by Hauppauge. No problems with those cards and the picture is much better. It's worth the extra money so I don't have to throw away the cards and get new ones.

I wrote up my experience on my website, if you want to hear the details. Just look for the MythTV articles.

Leadtek gets my vote

[Fiz Ocelot]

I've had a leadtek winfast 2000 xp deluxe for quite a while now and it's just been great. But now there's the expert version which I believe uses a 10bit decoder vs 8bit on the deluxe. Works well in linux too, even the remote.

I still haven't figured out how to get games to look good though, always too jagged. Dscaler couldn't seem to help either (though a nice program to use).

Re:Leadtek gets my vote

[digitaltraveller]

I just bought the Leadtek WinFast 2000 XP Expert.

I can't get it to work under Linux 2.6.7, at least not 'out of the box'.

The move to a 10 bit decoder probably requires passing an as of yet unknown parameter to modprobe.

Probably not the best card for newbies/lazy people...

Re:Leadtek gets my vote

[digitaltraveller]

Actually this makes it work:

modprobe bttv
modprobe cx8800
modprobe tda9887

Matrox vs AIW

[Anonymous Coward]

I had two Matrox Marvel cards, the G200 PCI and G400 AGP. Both were pretty nice, although they had no PVR features. However, Matrox F****D US ALL, took about 16 months to release w2000 drivers, then refused to release WinXP drivers. So I will never ever buy a Matrox product again, and have vowed to use what influence I have to advise others to avoid Matrox as you would avoid eating rat meat.
I now have an ATI AIW Radeon 9000, which is just fine. ATI doesn't seem to have Matrox's attitude. Matrox seems to think that if you bought their hardware,it was just to use it that day... and not on OS's in the near future.
Also, they were still shipping Marvel G400's after XP came out, promising XP drivers. As much as the blame really was from Zoftech (maker of MJPEG codec) who never released an XP sdk (for the obsolete MJPEG codec), the fact is that Linux developers were able to do it without any sdk...

Re:Matrox vs AIW

[cjellibebi]

IIRC, at the time Windows 2000 came out, there were no Windows 2000 drivers for the G400TV card, but they promised they would eventually make them. Some 16 or so months later, they announced that they had given up on them (blaming the way Windows 2000 was designed, but I wonder if there was a 'real' story that only a small handfull of people know about). What they did then was to offer Windows 2000 users a free upgrade to a G450eTV card. Unfortunately, when I finally switched from Win98 to Win2000, the offer had long since expired, and I was left to do battle with Google to find out what to do.

What you can do is to download the latest 'beta' (or is that 'alpha') of the G400TV Windows 2000 drivers and video-tools and install these. They can be found on the "Latest Matrox Drivers" page. Unfortunately, a few features, such as MJPEG support, and the ability to record from the remote-control app are not available. However, someone has figured out how to get a Marvel G400TV to use MJPEG with Windows 2000. This site explains it (it's in Italian use Google language tools to translate), and offers a patch or two that can be downloaded. Also, you should be able to record video with a 3rd-party video-editing app (but I've not tried that yet from Windows 2000).

Incidentally, has Matrox abandoned the video-editing/TV-tuner/graphics card all in one market, or is it just hopelessly late in bringing one out? Back in 1999, the G400TV seemed like the best option at the time, and I went for that (and I'm still using mine). At that time, I became fond of Matrox, but due to the lack of a more modern replacement (the latest offering in that line, the G450eTV is hopelessly out of date), I'll have to switch over to ATI All-In-Wonder or NVidia Whatever-The-Hell-The-Equivalent-Is-Called. One of the things I've heard about Matrox cards is that they have a reputation for the best screen-clarity. As I'm used to pushing my monitor's rez as high as it will go before my eyes explode, I'm a bit concerned that I may be forced to use a lower rez if I go with an ATI or NVidia.

Why TV Tuners? They are capture cards w/TV Tuners

[Nyder]

Look. These are NOT called TV Tuners. They are Capture Cards that have a TV Tuner in them. There are Capture cards without TV Tuners, so what do you call those? Single-Line in Not Tuners?

I would think that the tech minded people of this site would be a little better then that. This whole article makes me feel like I'm dealing with people that don't know anything about the tech they are talking about.

Not to mention the links in the articles didn't survive a simple slashdotting.

Okay, now that I got the rant out, here's what I've dealt with:

I own a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-PCI card. for the most part, it sucks. it's not there mass produced card (the one with the 250 in the name is), so I have to use the software they provide with the drivers they provide because 3rd party software won't work with there drivers. Well, they programs capture like shit. Video is fine, audio is real, real bad.
Luckly someone provides 3rd party drivers for that card and a whole slew of other cards. The drivers are tricky to set up, but i'm sure most people here (cept the posers and they guy who wrote and submitted this article) should be able to figure it out.

I also used a Ati All in wonder card (9600 varity), it's not too bad at all, actually. Didn't get to test out it's recording capabilities though (it wasn't my card), but I really like it's software.

I would personally probably buy an external one next time, because of the portability.
But what I would actually rather have would be an external Capture device that had build in harddrive and networking capabilities (prefer line, but wireless might be okay). Possibly a
Tivo like device that has network capabilities. Being able to manipulate what I recorded so I can archive it in whatever formats I want is necessary.

that's my little rant, I hope. sorry if it offends, but next time don't be so stupid.

another option

[chrismtb]

Another option for people who own newer video cards with VIVO or equivalent input, like most geforce fx cards, etc is to dig up or buy a cheap VCR to use as a cable tuner for their computer. The cable plug would go into the VCR, which has a built in tuner and then the RCA (or S-Video) outputs could go into the video card/ VIVO cable.

The advantages to this option are cost and ease of setup, assuming you have all of the drivers set up and working for you video card, all you have to do is connect the cable to the VCR and connect the VCR to the video input of your video card and also connect the VCR's audio output to your sound card line input. Also gives the added advantage of always having a VCR hooked up to your computer to make transferring video tapes to your computer quick and easy. For VCR's you can get a basic model that has stereo input/output new at walmart for about $40, or you can easily dig one up at a yard sale for a few bucks, maybe you even have on sitting in your house. Ebay is also an option, although shipping will often be about $15.

The primary disadvantage is that you do not have any control over the tuning through your computer. For most purposes, this means you would have to press a button on the remote or VCR, but it also means that you cannot do a full DVR setup, since your computer cannot choose what channel to record, it can only get what the VCR is currently set to.

In short, this could be a very economical option for people who just want to view TV on their computer and record single shows and already own a video card with RCA/s-video input. Setting this up could even be free for many people if they already have input on their video card and have a VCR sitting around.

~Chris

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Yeah, get a real operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject.

Or suck Theo's dick.

Get a $50 WinTV Go

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a PCI card, works well with Windows 2000. Have it since Nov 2002, never had problems. Use the lastest drivers from web site.

Alternative to TV Tuner Card

[snakeOil]

I've been doing a little bit of research with this and I came up with a pretty good alternative to a pc tuner. It's a video processor (essentially an external tv tuner that hooks up to your monitor and adjusts the tv/video signal to fit the refresh rate and resolution of your monitor). The pc doesn't have to be turned on - a big plus to me because it gets pretty hot in the summer with it on. Furthermore, I can avoid the process of turning the computer on, waiting for it to boot, and then clicking the application. The picture is supposedly be better too. The ViewSonic NextVision 6 has an hdtv tuner so it's a bit more future proof than some others. It can also do progressive scan so your xbox and gamecube games can really look good. The only benefit of an TV tuner card is that most of them can capture video as well. But then I have a capture card to do that. The only caveat is the price, a bad review on amazon about how it screws up the computer screen, and how it's supposedly not TRUE hdtv. (I'm not sure how true that last one is - I haven't done enough research.)

Re:#1

[unitron]

But if you FP as an AC, how do you know if it was you or another AC that got FP?

I Disagree With Some Points Of The Review

[Korgan]

I personally own a Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Expert card, the big brother to the Deluxe. It uses the same software and drivers and yet my experience has been far better than the reviewers. (http://www.leadtek.com/multimedia/winfast_tv2000x p_expert_1.html)

The remote is brilliant. About the only thing that cannot be done from the remote is scheduling of recordings and setup (such as tuning channels). Everything else can be achieved from the remote. Their talk of not being able to start the TV/FM tuners from the power button on the remote is just wrong. If you have the WinFast Wizard running in your system tray, you can power the TV/FM tuners on and off without a problem using the remote. You don't need to start it from the keyboard/mouse at all.

The size of the files when recording a show can be an issue. However, I use DivX codecs for that and the sizes are exceptionally smaller than standard MPEG1/2 file sizes. That goes without saying. What bothered me however is that I didn't experience anywhere near the sizes they described when using the MPEG1/2 codecs. 5 minutes of TV recording for me using those codecs is around 500KB, not nearly 800KB. Maybe there is an extra setting he had altered that I have not, or maybe I have just tweaked mine a little more. However, the bitrates and such were the same as what I have in my default profiles.

As I live in New Zealand, I cannot use Titan or any other service to book recordings for my shows. I do that manually. I cannot speak for the experience he had with Titan. As far as manually setting up recordings go, its very simple and straight forward. Select the channel, select the start/finish times, select the encoding profile and then give it a filename. Very simple. The date/time is appended to the filename so that if you have multiple recordings with the same name, or just forget to give it a name, the file will always have a unique, timestamped name. This is very useful if you have several episodes of a weekly show recorded so you can easily find the episode you're looking for.

Personally, I love this card myself. I find it brilliant, easy to use and so far, all other software beyond that which comes with the card has not been suitable to my personal likes. The bundled software has been the best. Not even BeyondTV 3 from Snapstream was good enough for me. I liked the way I could watch recorded shows from anywhere, but the software itself just wasn't nice to use (and it doesn't support the remote for this card).

I have used this card with MythTV as well. That is nice and its very straight forward to get running. The remote works, with some external help, and the only thing I found myself doing was changing the volume/channel buttons on the remote to work more like cursor navigation buttons. I then had the fine tune buttons setup for changing the volume and just used the number buttons for changing channels. However, in the end, it did all work nicely and was a very satisfactory setup for a full time PVR. Unfortunately I like to use my computer for more than just watching TV ;-)

Do I recommend this card? Most definitely. Of all the TV tuner cards I've owned (6 over the years now) this is the best to date.

Re:I Disagree With Some Points Of The Review

[Korgan]

Oh, one point I forgot to mention. The card doesn't need to plug in to the line in port of your sound card. I have a direct connection between the card itself and my SBLive Auxiliary port. This means there are no extra cables on the back and it doesn't affect any surround setup as the review said it did.

Maybe thats a difference between the Deluxe and the Expert, but I don't think so. I've owned my card a little over a year now. Its definitely not the sort of feature that would get dropped and I'd expect it to have migrated to all models by now.

That sounds like a hotel...

[OneDeeTenTee]

...with no roof. (They probably don't have trees either.)

Bad drivers?

[Spit]

Shit drivers for TV tuner card getting you down? Just use a better driver, dumbass.

*bump*

[msimm]

Hauppage products are very well supported with specific support in the Mythtv project, which is very good for us Linux users. I had some issues with cheaper capture card selecting the wrong language on some channels (my spanish isn't *that* good) and bought a WinTV card (one of the less expensive Hauppage card that doesn't include hardware encoding features) and have been very happy.

A lot of cards are supported by the v4l drivers, but that doesn't always mean they will work exactly like you'd hope. Also was surprised to read in the requirements list on the Mythtv site:

ATI All-In-Wonder cards WILL NOT work due to driver issues.

WinTV PCI

[mcgroarty]

I'm a fan of the Hauppauge WinTV PCI cards. You can find them cheap on ebay, as little as $20. And they work just fine with Linux (bt848). No HDTV, telecine deinterlacing and such like the newer Hauppauge cards, but cheap & fine under Linux is good.

The WinTV PCI Radio (or PCI FM) is the same card with an FM radio tuner as well -- the radio also works just fine under Linux.

There are a few other bt848 and bt878 cards out there as well. While they're a little old, they've got one especially cool feature many other cards don't: card-to-card bus mastering. With most modern video cards, you can have the cards talk to each other directly and the TV card uses zero CPU cycles -- just a smidge of bus contention when you're banging on video.

That said, the card can be a bit of a bitch with Windows XP. Hauppauge's driver engineers haven't kept the drivers very well up to date.

Creative

[Jozer99]

I use a Creative Digital VCR Blaster Card. I know that it has been discontinued, but I own 3 TV cards (Creative, Haupaugge and ATI), and the Creative offers by far the most TiVo like experence. With the other two cards, you are constantly reminded that you are using a computer to watch TV. The screen skips every once and awhile, and there is a lag when pausing, fast forewarding and rewinding. The software often crashes. The creative software has some problems, but when you press a button, your computer turns into a TV, plus you can instantly pause and navigate through the video like a DVD player, but much more smoothly. It even works great on my 550 MHz PIII. The only thing it lacks is an integrated TV guide. I have tried all sorts of guides, but none of them integrate into the software well, if at all. If you don't want to spend a lot of time trying to get a good solution, just find one of these cards on eBay.

redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go. See subject.

Re:Why TV Tuners? They are capture cards w/TV Tune

[JoseBar]

I think the best way to go is some sort of 802.11g device that would plug to the cable/antenna and multicast the signal over wireless. HTTP (for users) and SOAP (for applications) interfaces would allow tuning to a channel or configuring features.

Ideally, the package would include both a web-based interface and a client application that would talk SOAP to the box and tune into the multicast for a nice TV-in-a-window experience.

With the number of smart low-cost wireless appliances coming from companies like Linksys, I wouldn't be surprised if they made something like this. They have something just for audio and pictures, but not video.

You can't always have what you want...

Still one big limitation...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still wish there were TV tuners that don't use overlay so that it lets me lock my PC, play games, hell even press ctrl-alt-delete without screwing up recording.

to really lower Dscalers cpu usage

[Markos]

- disable all the filters
- in the deinterlace menu, make sure judder terminator is off and change to 2:2 pulldown, flip on odd
- under "Settings->General hardware setup" change your cpu type to "below 300mhz"

At these settings, on a 1.3ghz thunderbird, Dscaler uses 2-3% cpu power.

I admire your e-penis size. n/t

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

What about radio tuners?

[Just Some Guy]

On the same subject, I'm looking for a Linux-compatible software-controllable radio tuner, either internal or external. I'd like a GUI interface for manual control, and a scriptable control for automated recording jobs.

I've looked through various hardware compatibility lists, but haven't found any resources comparing different models. In other words, I don't just want something that supported, I want something that works well and that's used by more than just the person who wrote the drivers.

Does such an animal exist? Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Re:Why TV Tuners? They are capture cards w/TV Tune

[EtherMonkey]

Look. These are NOT called TV Tuners. They are Capture Cards that have a TV Tuner in them. There are Capture cards without TV Tuners, so what do you call those? Single-Line in Not Tuners?

I call them "video capture cards," which readily distinguishes them from "TV tuner cards."

You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe.

tuner box?

[Lehk228]

I had a TV card and hated the fucking thing so i got a TV -> VGA converter box (General Electric, $70), it sits between the monitor and PC and when switched to TV mode it overrides the PC signal and puts the TV display on the monitor

Disadvantages:
No TV Capture
cannot be controlled by PC

Advantages:
No drivers
OS independant
can be used while PC is poered off
no Lag (you can use it to play video games)
TV remote
NO system resource usage whatsoever

from the whatabout-for-linux-users dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing I need so badly that I cannot wait for a Linux driver port, especially TV tuner cards.

None of my computers have run Windows for years. They never will again. Rest in peace, Age of Empires II... Goodbye, Team Fortress Classic. I will miss you.

Re:Before choosing...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly the one thing I'm curious too -- since Linux is what I do run. Last time I checked things out, Hauppage (sp?) was well supported -- don't know about any others though (nor how out of my date my information is -- it _was_ a while ago).

A completely external solution

[ProKras]

Those who do not care about video capture but simply want to save space might consider a completely external solution. For the last few years I have been using an external tv tuner with direct VGA output. There's no software or drivers to install and I can watch TV without booting. You don't even need the computer at all. If you have any old VGA monitor lying around you can put it to work with one of these.

The disadvantage, of course, is that there is no video capture and you can't watch TV from a small window while working on something else...full screen only. Also, I haven't checked recently, but these devices were not easy to find when I bought mine (around '99) and may be even harder to get now.

My unit (NTSC) has inputs for Coax, RCA and S-video, stereo mini-jack and VGA-in for pass through. The output is 640x480 VGA has RCA and stereo mini-jack outputs as well. I was not happy with the pass-through quality so I use a separate KVM to switch between my computer and TV. I also replaced the supplied AC adapter with one rated for more current.

All comparisons are worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

People, when you compare TV cards, you have to say where did you buy them!

Cards with the same name use different tuners in different parts of the world. Eg. I have a Leadtek WinFast 2000 XP bought in Europe (Philips PAL tuner) and its simply crap, with noisy sound and picture. Although as I read, many US owners of the "same" card are quite satisfied.

Re:#1

[Anonymous Coward]

By reading the content of the post you dumbfuck. Fucking retarded christians go stuff a jesus didlo up your ass and rape your shitfilled mother.

Hauppauge is very good.

[mrmeval]

I am still using their first PCI card (bt878) in my Linux box. They have been a Linux friendly company.

http://www.hauppauge.com/

With this 'old' card I can do full frame rate video recording.

Troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

What fucktard moderator modded this troll?

ATI = Absence of Test Instruments?

[Futurepower(R)]

I've got a good answer to ATI driver problems. Buy a card with a Radeon 7000 chipset. $34.70, DVI out, TV out, and they don't seem to have any driver problems. The card is so bottom end that ATI tech support seems to hate to admit they even exist. Plenty good if you don't run games.

Reading these posts about ATI driver problems is an experience for me like listening to people complain about mosquitos or athlete's foot or getting a cold. People have been doing that for centuries, and in equivalent computer years, it probably has been that long the world has been experiencing ATI driver flakiness.

Suppose ATI is not really a video chipset maker. Suppose the company's real purpose is to make faulty drivers? Maybe the company is run by some rich guy who doesn't need to make any more money, and likes to annoy people.

Maybe ATI stands for Absence of Test Instruments.

Do you ever wonder about the sociology of ATI driver quirks? Matrox released drivers every few months, and rarely had problems. nVidia has been the same, in my experience. What conditions exist that ATI sometimes, in the past, released new drivers every few days? After releasing faulty drivers every few days for weeks, wasn't there anyone at ATI idealistic enough to decide that they needed to do better?

Anyhow, I agree with a comment above that they seem to have gotten better.

ATI and drivers have been one of the mysteries of the universe. Sure, it's not on the level of a short guy with black hair telling tall blond Germans that they are the master race, but it is a mystery nevertheless.

You can probably tell from the tone of this comment that I too am an ATI rakee, as in being raked over the coals several times by ATI drivers.

Soundcards?

[Doc Ruby]

Who's got the shootout of the "best soundcard under $500"? I want one for playback only that has stereo, 5.1 and maybe 7.1 sound, onchip MP3 decoding, onchip 8+ input decoding, no recording. Best playback audio quality for the buck. Basically a stereo DAC with a /dev/dsp driver. Who's got reviews?

Moving shows with Tivo

[raygundan]

"Nope. Just out of interest, how do you record something for someone else with TiVo?"

With the built-in DVD burner.

Re:Moving shows with Tivo

[Kris_J]

Sweet.

(...unless their DVD player is a PS2, but that's not the fault of this device...)

Reviewing the TV2000 is kinda Old News

[macraig]

Leadtek's TV2000 series has been around for more than a year. I've been using the TV2000 Deluxe since last May, and it was a major step up from the Pinnacle card that I had previously... mostly because (1) the Leadtek software was far better and had genuine PVR capability, (2) Pinnacle has a Nazi policy about major updates to its software and is very lazy about both that and its tech support, and (3) Leadtek is polite enough to provide the (RS232) port for its infrared remote right on the card, rather than demanding an existing free port like the Pinnacle product.

A recent update to the Leadtek software allegedly added direct-to-DVD feature to its PVR capabilities (using Ulead's Disc-Direct SDK), but so far I haven't benn able to get it to work (reboots my Win 2K PC and such).

Nevertheless, in perspective the Leadtek card is FAR better than the Pinnacle Studio PCTV Pro that I owned, and cost considerably less as well. The only thing I'm really missing with the Leadtek is what the Hauppauge PVR-350 has: built-in HARDWARE MPEG encoding and decoding.

WinFast TV 2000 XP Deluxe is Crap

[windowpain]

Just doesn't work right in my PC. Sending it back to Newegg and paying the restocking fee.

why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

in my experience, anything that is worth watching on TV shows up on ed2k/dc++/etc within hours anyway..

TV Tuners Useless - at least in UK.

[cms108]

Unless you only want to be able to watch 5 channels... 2 of them rubbish. You're much better off just getting a video capture card and plugging your satellite or cable box into that.

I spose you could get a DVB card for the free to air channels, but that still isn't very many... even most of the freeview channels are videoguard encrypted, it's just that the subsrcription card is free.

External Linux TV tuner?

[St. Arbirix]

I'll probably be using a laptop for the rest of my life, do any of the USB or 1394 cards work in Linux?

tv tuners

[techefnet]

i think external tv tuners are almost impossible for linux users to use, but most of the internal ones are fine. i myself got an hercules smart-tv stereo card, although i cant use it right now because im waiting for the motherboard i returned 4 weeks ago :/

Internal all the way

[Professor Cheech'i]

I've had a Winfast TV2000 Expert for nearly a year now, and i'll tell you something- i haven't had a problem with it yet. lots of people complain about the drivers and stuff not working correctly, but i haven't found this to be the case. the packaged software includes video editing, DVD authoring, tuner, recorder, DVD player, and effects apps. for $50 total you get the card itself, 4 discs, a remote (with batteries), and cables. all in all, not bad. also has pretty good multi display compatibility. i upgraded from the 'deluxe' model and i'm extremely impressed. DScaler never worked on XP, but works well with my Mandrake box. oh yeah, Mandrake automatically detects TV Tuners, but 99% of the time it detects them as Hauppage (most have the same tuner inside, so it still does work if you keep that setting). i've used a PCI tuner card for both personal tv viewing and recording as well as professional work. here's what i've found to be the ideal setting: >2.0GHz chip >768MB DDR get a 10,000 RPM SATA drive for your recording destination. don't do anything else with it, just write the recorded video to it. makes a great buffer if you record straight to DVD, and i've never seen the video or sound 'hang' when i do it this way. the only downside is the expense of the drives... but they're getting better. check out http://www.tv-cards.com

PCI

[jbridge21]

you can pry my bt878 from my cold, dead hands.