HTPC Video Card

[xanibar]

I am building a powerhouse HTPC in a Ahanix D.Vine case. I am very excited about it. Except the only HDTV cards I see out there use Antennas, which just will not work in my area. I have seen an ATI X800 with a TV Tuner built in, however it is only AGP, and I am locked in on buying PCI-E for several reasons. Does anyone know of any HDTV tuners that do not use Antennaes? I especially would like a x800 or geforece6800 quality video card. Would a seperate tuner suffice? I heard that if I was to plug a playstation into my tuner, there wqould be a time delay because the video is being displayed by the second card. Is this true? Please help. I have a $2,000USD budget here. A gigabyte nforce4 socket 939, amd 3800+ 1Gig of memory, Audigy 2NZ sound card and a 7200.8 HDD etc...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Matthias99]

Does anyone know of any HDTV tuners that do not use Antennaes?

All currently available HDTV tuners are OTA. Content providers won't allow ones that use CableCARD to be made, for fear of piracy.

Would a seperate tuner suffice?

As opposed to? There are no video cards with HDTV tuners onboard. For SDTV tuners, most people recommend buying a separate tuner and video card, so that you are not locked in if you want to upgrade either one later.

I heard that if I was to plug a playstation into my tuner, there wqould be a time delay because the video is being displayed by the second card. Is this true?

Yes, although on some software encoder cards you can basically eliminate this if you turn off all the filters and are not recording. I personally think it's better to get an external component->VGA transcoder (a "VGA Box").

 

[xanibar]

Thank you so much. So what exactlly would a VGA transcoder do for me. Be a switch box between my playstation and computer? I don't think that's what you mean. i am going to be running windows media center. My original setup was an ATI x800 and the ati hdtv tuner. I head that this will even cause slight delays while watching TV. What is the optimal setup for recording/watching cable TV on my computer? Should I just wait for the x800 all-in-wonder to come out for PCI-e because it is already out in an AGP format? Let me know, thanks so much man! You're truly a life saver!!

 

[imported_Kensai]

Just get an ATI HTPC Wonder PCI card.

 

[kylebisme]

What is a HTPC Wonder? I see nothing of the sort on ATI's site.