TV Tuners

[antieuclid]

I'm about to head off to college, and since I suspect I am going to be the only person in my dorm who enjoys watching CSPAN, I was thinking of getting a TV. But then I thought, wait a minute, I've got a perfectly good computer here, I'll get a TV Tuner instead. Now, some years ago I got an ATI TV Wonder VE, which worked pretty well but which never got the hang of recording video, and when I went to test it a few weeks ago, it rebooted my computer every time I tried to use it. So I'm now in the market for a new TV Tuner, and I'm hoping to do better than the TV Wonder from a few years ago. I don't want to spend more than $100, it would be nice (though far from nessesary) if it was an external USB thing so I could attach it to my other computers easily, it needs to record video at preset times on preset channels, and something like the ATI channel guide would be nice. Most importantly, it needs to play nice with Windows XP and it needs to actually work. What do people recomend?

antieuclid

 

[yhelothar]

the viewsonic external one looks pretty great for around $80 at newegg...
don't have any personal experience with that tuner..

another good one is the leadtek one if you don't mind too much using an internal one

 

[MDE]

Try the latest software for the TV Wonder VE. Mine works, not the greatest card out there, but it gets the job done. You will need Windows Media Player 9 AND Encoder 9, so you might want to wait until you get on a college LAN to download if you don't have broadband.

 

[LunarRay]

For $99 at Fry's you can get a device called VEG (Visual Entertainment Generator) you can plug your video card into it and any other device or game platform and it has a TV tuner as well. You plug your monitor into it and it is great. It also has no Latency as all the PCI type tv cards seem to have with game platforms.

 

[PCHPlayer]

ATi has a new TV Wonder Pro with optional remote control. It is new enough to use the 8.x series of MMC. I have no idea how good it is or what has changed over the TV Wonder.