Most good TV tuners are PCI( some are more suitable for laptops, and they are USB or even PCMCIA cards) , and they would come bundled with their own software, so you can interact with it as if you are running a TV, most of them come with a IR remote , also they would have AV in / out connections in addition to S-video in /out, and offcourse it will have a connection to your cable line and maybe in addition to that you will get and sound in port .
What I did when I used to use a TV tuner card, is hook up an old dell monitor 15 " to my second VGA connection ( through a DVI vga adapter offcourse, the X800Xl I have is dual DVI) I had lying around and from the ATI driver settings I would select to extend my desktop to the other monitor rather than stretch my desktop to the small 15" monitor which makes it look ugly compared to my 19 " flat screen CRT, and then once I open the TV tuner software I would drag it to the secondary monitor ( the dell 15" in this case) and stretch that window inside the dell monitor to take the whole screen.
That way I can browse the internet on my main screen and watch / listen to my favorite channels at the same time on my secondary screen.
Also most TV tuner cards are able to record shows in many formats, even at schedueled times when you are not around and stop recording at specefic desired times too that way you can record just what you want when you know the broadcast and finish time of the show / movie. Alot of tv tuners have FM AM receivers integrated in them so it would also souble as a radio.
Hope this helps.
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