Ok which tvtuner to get?

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
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I currently have an ati tvwonder of which I've been happy with however I have now switched to XP from 2k and I'm experiencing a ton of compatibility problems. I can get it to work but it's more hassle than it's worth.

So far these two products interest me;
avermedia
videoblaster by creative

Things I'm looking to do with a tvtuner:

capture mpeg2 video
PVR type functions, the more features the better, such as pause live tv, rewind live tv
it must have some kind of tv guide type feature (something like ati's guideplus)
it must support stereo sound
good video quality
a schedular would be nice as well
must be compatible with XP

So what I'm looking for are opinions from people who have them or have used them or recomendations for better products.

Thanks in advance.
 
Oct 30, 2002
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i use a hauppauge wintv go myself but its only mono
my favorite tuner is the leadtek winfast or whatever it is, check out leadteks site for information but its around $70, has a remote, stereo.. tons of features and is supposed to be really good.

ive had ati tuners and dont like them at all.. i think their junk esp under xp.
hauppauge or leadtek!
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
16,773
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Ok I've added another card to the mix, it's from asus.

I'm looking for responses from anyone that has had any of these three cards.
 

Kazuo

Member
Oct 14, 2002
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I have the Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP and it works really well. The software isn't perfect (or wasn't about 5 or 6 months ago, when I updated last) but it's still a very fast, very nice card that does MPEG captures in real-time very well. For $70ish, it's not bad. On my Athlon 1200 with 256MB of RAM it captured 30fps video and sound in MPEG-2 640x480. Hope it's suitable for you :)
 
Oct 30, 2002
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the leadtek is prob the best deal out there for a tuner as far as price/performance goes.

hauppauge makes quality products, i use them and find them great.. they do have some HDTV models and surround sound models that are interesting.. but for me the $40 mono sound hauppuage wintv go works fine. But I think if i used my tuner for more than novelty then i wouldnt get anything but the leadtek.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
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They do have some hdtv models? Hmm... I'll have to look into those.

I assume that means the source would have to be HD, if not will it output to an HDtv?

So leadtek?


I guess I should have made a poll.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
16,773
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OK after reading those threads I'm still undecided.

My question after reading the two threads is this: If money is not an issue how does the leadtek compare to the asus tuner, in terms of video quality and pvr functionality?

Has anyone tried both?



You wouldn't think a tv tuner would be this difficult to pick out.
 
Oct 30, 2002
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i made a similiar choice before i left for college (about 3 yrs ago) and chose the ati tv wonder for $70 i got stereo tuning, coax/composite/svideo input (since space was a minimum i wanted to make sure i had inputs for whatever), closed captioning, about everything i wanted.. but that came out to be a mistake as it wouldnt work correctly without hacking at the drivers and software, and it didnt like nvidia video cards paired with it, go figure.
i dont have any experience with the asus. hauppuage's i know do deinterlacing of the signal in the drivers (which i dont think any others do..), but you can get the same effect with any tuner using a deinterlacing software package, and i know is one available for free on the net.. but i found it clunky to use.

the two i described (leadtek/hauppauge) are safe bets, the asus is worth checking into but i've had bad luck with their motherboards in the past and refuse to buy them again.. but many swear by that company so who knows..

edit- the software that does the deinterlacing is DScaler.. and the hauppauge licensed the software to integrate into theirs.
might have to navigate some but check it out at http://www.hauppauge.com
 

Kazuo

Member
Oct 14, 2002
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Sorry, I've only tried Leadtek and a Pinnacle Studio PCTV (which was terrible until they finally decided years later to put out a Win2K driver, and even then, not worth it). The Leadteks that are out now tend to be stereo (mine's mono, but I actually use it through a VCR for the sound, so I cheat). I'm not 100% sure it has all of those PVR functions, but it does capture MPEG-2 video if you have a good PC; I use TVGuide.com for that sort of guide feature, it does have MTS Stereo, the quality is better than the Pinnacle, and it has a scheduler I believe (I don't really use that sort of thing, and I don't get a TV signal in this room at the moment, so I haven't actually used the card for a few months). I know it works in Windows XP though (hence the name). It also has a remote and you can listen to radio and save it live to MP3, which is good for radio shows or exclusive live things. Anyway, I like mine, but I can't say for sure you'd like it. I do know it works for me.
 

Dedpuhl

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
10,370
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I use Wintv dbx. I think it's a good card.



While on the subject of these cards, does anyone know of any free programs that will record off of FM radio stations? For some reason, Hauppage charges extra for the FM radio capture software. I want something that I can record the Walton and Johnson radio show because I work through half of it...
 

Boobers

Senior member
Jun 28, 2001
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I own the Asus v880 Tuner, and I love it. It has stereo inputs and can capture directly to MPEG 1 & 2. It comes with a remote control (which is great for watching DVD's). I love this tuner and for $80, I don't think you'll find anything better.

I use Cyberlink PowerVCR (for capture, edit, cutting and joining) & PowerDVD for watching DVD's and media files. IMHO, it is the best package I've found simply because of it's ease of use.
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
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I'm sure you've seen my comments on the TV 880. I've also used the Pinnacle PCTV, which was garbage. I almost got the Leadtek (literally had it in my cart at $53), but it used the same CX878 chip as the crap-tastic Pinnacle, so that scared me into buying the TV880. I woulda paid $30 AR for the Pinnacle had I not returned it, but the extra $50 I paid for the Asus was well worth it, and now I have a card that does everything I expected a TV tuner card to do and tons more.

Chiz
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
16,773
136
The asus has the nicest specs and I've seen a couple of problems reported with the leadtek (nothing major though).
I wish there were some people that have tried the video blaster and the avermedia cards:( That way I could feel 100% confident about my purchase.

If places didn't charge that damn restocking fee I'd try them all.
 

MangoX

Senior member
Feb 13, 2001
623
165
116
One of my friends have a MSI TV@nywhere. Works well, and the video quality is good. Has a remote too, but its feels very fragile if u ask me.
 

videobruce

Golden Member
Nov 27, 2001
1,069
11
81
I have had bad luck with Asus, mostly support or lack of. They aren't responsive at all.
I have the V7100DC and can't use the nVidea drivers because the video in won't work with them. I'm stuck with Asus's drivers to use the Asus Live driver.

From what I have seen of the video quality from ATI and nVidea with the VIVO I feel they all suck.
Computers and NTSC don't mix, at least at these price points. Without spending over $1000 for a decent scan converter anything that goes on a NTSC monitor looks like Beta 3 recording! The capture end isn't much better. I doubt that these chips pass 2MHz!

With HDTV here (well, sort of) the quality of these solutions takes us back to the 60's and the Smearitron (Trinitron)!
 

scorpi141

Member
Oct 13, 2002
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I bought Avermedia Studio card couple of days ago. It didn't ship yet, but i've seen pretty good reviews.
MSI card doesn't has radio as far as i know.

 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,380
16,773
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Originally posted by: scorpi141
I bought Avermedia Studio card couple of days ago. It didn't ship yet, but i've seen pretty good reviews.
MSI card doesn't has radio as far as i know.

Please let me know what you think about it, ie video quality, any installation issues, features, and how well the software works (meaning the pvr type stuff).

Thanks.
 

Ipno

Golden Member
Apr 30, 2001
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I'm personally not really that thrilled with my Leadtek card, it really doesn't look that great to me. If I run it through dscaler it looks good but I'd rather have a card that didn't take filtering to make it look good.

I bought it so I could convert my home movies to write a VCD and it will work for that. After I'm done I'll probably sell it. I tried hooking a playstation 2 to it and I didn't like that at all.
 
Oct 30, 2002
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not many cards are going to look great on a pc monitor without filtering

the best thing about hauppauge cards are that ALL of their products were 'upgraded' for free with the same technology thats in Dscaler to be in their tv viewing software.
Very nice addition! Of course using dscaler you can get great playback on any tv tuner but it isnt very intuitive at all.. but hauppauges software is.