Have some TV tuner questions

[Cabages]

Im hoping to start watching and recording cable (from a coaxial cable) on my computer. I dont know much about tv tuner's, however. My questions are:

- Are the tuners that can record HD cable available/stable yet?

- What features do I need in order to get cable on the card?

- Is there a limit on how many channels I can recieve? IIRC our cable goes up to around 500 channels.

Basically thats it. I just dont know what I need to get cable on it, and no, i cant do OTA.

Thanks!

 

[Cabages]

??

 

[JPB]

Ill be keeping an eye on this thread, as I have the same questions.

 

[Canai]

I have an ATi x1900 All-In-Wonder, which has a built-in tuner. I don't have an HD tuner, but I believe that there are several options available for it.

As far as features, I just screw on the coax and load up ATi's TV program. Channel selection is done either via a standard search, where the comp goes through every channel, or you can add or type in channel numbers.

It's great for pausing and rewinding TV.

edit: make sure you have plenty of space for recording. The files can get big quickly.

 

[kevinf2090]

i think that current tv cards can only receive over the air hd but don't quote me on that because i am not 100% sure

 

[ronnn]

i have a tuner that accepts hd via digital cable, as well as anolog cable. Haven't tried the digital atsc yet, so not sure how well it works.

 

[Butterbean]

The cards that pick up hdtv over cable have what is called "Clear-QAM ". A lot of newer cards like the ATI TV Wonder 650 (PCI-E 1X version - the simple PCI version doesn't have Clear-Qam - Qam) have it. I haven't tried it yet but I read posts from people who do record from but selection seems to vary quite bit.

 

[Cabages]

Originally posted by: Butterbean
The cards that pick up hdtv over cable have what is called "Clear-QAM ". A lot of newer cards like the ATI TV Wonder 650 (PCI-E 1X version - the simple PCI version doesn't have Clear-Qam - Qam) have it. I haven't tried it yet but I read posts from people who do record from but selection seems to vary quite bit.

Hmm, thanks for the post. I'll have to check that out, but my track record with ATi isnt so great (I actually have a HDTV Wonder that is a POS).

Thanks, I really needed to know what feature to look for.

 

[Binky]

Missingremote.com has a decent TV card guide. Check out the HDhomerun and the avermedia m780.

You can still record all cable/sat channels by piping the video into the computer over an s-video cable. Clear-QAM is a less than perfect solution to allow us to actually record in hi-def, although some channels will not be unencrypted so you cant record those. Good luck...