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Best TV tuner? any suggestions?

P

Phantom589

Member
I have a Dell XPS 600 Media Center Edition PC. Ive been looking for a good TV tuner and remote. Anyone have any suggestions or know where I can get a good one for cheap?
I wanna be able to watch,record, rewind, pause live tv, in addition to having stuff like a scheduler, etc (doesnt MCE have that any way?)
 
There are cheap ones, and fairly expensive ones, and I am not convinced there is a huge difference between them. There are a few reviews out there, but not many current ones. I went with the ATI TV Wonder Elite, and feel I could have gone with the TV Wonder for half the price.
 
Originally posted by: Markbnj
There are cheap ones, and fairly expensive ones, and I am not convinced there is a huge difference between them. There are a few reviews out there, but not many current ones. I went with the ATI TV Wonder Elite, and feel I could have gone with the TV Wonder for half the price.
Click to expand...


does this one allow for all the stuff i listed? bascially can it replace ur tv
 
Yeah, I guess basically. The tuner will pull in the first 125 channels of cable, or whatever is available from an antenna. It won't tune pay channels, or HDTV from a cable box, or HBO, or anything else that requires the set-top box from your cable company to decode. However you can feed video in from a set-top box. Just tell it to output on channel 3 and then tune the card to that channel. If you want Tivo features in that case you need to get them on the set-top.

The best software out there pretty much turns your PC into a PVR like Tivo. The software that comes with the ATI cards is Powercinema from Cyberstink. If you want better try Beyond TV, or Sage TV, both retail packages in the $69-79 range. GBPVR is free but I have heard it is a little rough around the edges. Can't say myself. Linux users have Myth TV, which I have heard good things about.

It all works pretty well, at least on this ATI card. There can be quite a variation in channel quality, but I have a long cable run. Some people say that the tuner cards need a good clear signal. Mine is good enough for now. Audio is excellent
 
Originally posted by: Markbnj
Yeah, I guess basically. The tuner will pull in the first 125 channels of cable, or whatever is available from an antenna. It won't tune pay channels, or HDTV from a cable box, or HBO, or anything else that requires the set-top box from your cable company to decode. However you can feed video in from a set-top box. Just tell it to output on channel 3 and then tune the card to that channel. If you want Tivo features in that case you need to get them on the set-top.

The best software out there pretty much turns your PC into a PVR like Tivo. The software that comes with the ATI cards is Powercinema from Cyberstink. If you want better try Beyond TV, or Sage TV, both retail packages in the $69-79 range. GBPVR is free but I have heard it is a little rough around the edges. Can't say myself. Linux users have Myth TV, which I have heard good things about.

It all works pretty well, at least on this ATI card. There can be quite a variation in channel quality, but I have a long cable run. Some people say that the tuner cards need a good clear signal. Mine is good enough for now. Audio is excellent
Click to expand...


just wondering, is ur pc a media center pc or not? cause i heard the tuner comes with its own media center like software and i was wondering if u use that.
 
I bought a cheapie AverMedia tuner card and it works more than fine for me. With rebate at Fry's Electronics, I got this card for like $15. The software is fine and I'm able to do adequate pvr and rewind etc. I'm not saying this is necessarily the one to get, but like someone else said, I think the signal is more important than the card.
 
[just wondering, is ur pc a media center pc or not?]

No, XP Pro. Media Center Edition has some software built in, but I don't know much about it.
 
The TV Wonder Elite is supposed to have excellent image quality compared to the other value-based TV tuners, according to a review AT did here this spring.

The software package it comes with is utterly useless crap though, so i wasn't too impressed with mine.
However, since you already have Media Center, it would be a viable option, since MCE has very decent recording options, etc.
 
I honestly think companies claiming better image quality is more marketing hype than reality. Ultimately no matter which card you have, your cable signal is running through it. If your cable signal is poor, I highly doubt a card that touts "better image quality" is actually going to clean up the signal. You would need a signal amplifier for that, and tv tuner cards have nothing of the sort built in to my knowledge. I'm sure more high end cards might "clean" up a signal a little more than others, but I doubt it's a night and day difference. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
u guys think it would be worth it to get a hd tv tuner card for $150?
lots of cable programs are now broadcast in hd (alot of the stuff on fox for example).
 
I would agree with that. You can buy inline amplifiers, both externally powered and the passive kind (if you have satellite TV).
 
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