Graphics card and TV tuner card combo - suggestions

[iheartfdh]

Hello,

I just bought a refurb PC (Dell Inspiron Desktop 546, MiniTower, Windows 7 Home, 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz, AMD Athlon II X2 215) and want to buy a graphics card as well as a TV tuner card. I don't do any gaming, only going to use it for watching video on my TV / use it as a DVR. Input would be coaxial, either from antennae or from cable.

Any suggestions on what card or cards should I get? Performance is highest priority, followed closely by price and ease of use. I don't need an amazing graphics card, just something that will work well. Also, I'd like to spend around $100-150 total.

I was thinking of:

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-01G-P3-N9...5746108&sr=1-5
or
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-512-P3-N9...condition=used

coupled with

http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-1196...5749967&sr=8-1
or
http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-WinT...5749967&sr=8-6

Thank you so much in advance for suggestions.

 

[nenforcer]

I just bought a Huappauge WinTV-HVR 1600 PCI and it works great in my XP machine but I had trouble getting it to work in 64-bit on my Vista machine which already had another TV Tuner. You will probably have better luck in Windows 7.

I would recommend this graphics card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130542

It is newer than the 9400 GT and supports GDDR5, DirectX 10.1 and the latest VP4 video processing features.

That and the internal Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 card puts you right at $150.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The onboard video (or whatever video) that the computer comes with will handle what you want to do.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

This makes me think back to the good ole days of the ATI All in Wonders! I would have happily paid an extra 50 bucks for the capabilities for my 5850!

 

[iheartfdh]

Thanks for the advice. So the Hauppauge 1196 is a decent card? I've heard that it can't do hardware decoding - will that really matter for my purposes?

My internal graphics card is an integrated ATI Radeon HD320 - should that work or should I get a better graphics card?

Anything else I should know before purchasing?

Thanks again!

 

[Wellsoul2]

This makes me think back to the good ole days of the ATI All in Wonders! I would have happily paid an extra 50 bucks for the capabilities for my 5850!

I still have an ATI HDTV Wonder paired with a Radeon 5770 and it works fine with XP.

 

[kalrith]

Thanks for the advice. So the Hauppauge 1196 is a decent card? I've heard that it can't do hardware decoding - will that really matter for my purposes?

My internal graphics card is an integrated ATI Radeon HD320 - should that work or should I get a better graphics card?

Anything else I should know before purchasing?

Thanks again!

The card is actually the HVR-1250. I've been using the dual-tuner version (HVR-2250) for almost a year with OTA, and I've been extremely pleased. I can't say anything about how it does with cable. Also, be certain that you have a spare PCI-express slot for the card.

Assuming you mean Radeon HD3200, you should be just fine. You can always add a dedicated video card later if you need to.