USB TV Tuner

[thescreensavers]

Well it seems my TV is dying. I have a 22 inch lcd and my bed is only 10 feet away so its perfect, plus I got Promedia 5.1 speakers

Its a Laptop so PCI is out. W7 64bit, Just going to use WMC and hooked up to Basic Cable

I am looking at the ATI HD 600 which can be had at 40 bucks. Reviews seem good, but any other TV Tuners you guys can recommend for under 100?

There is also the ATI Theater HD 750 for 15 bucks more.. hmm but it does not have hardware encoding like the 600&650

And the ATI TV Wonder HD 650

 

[sdifox]

basic cable like ntsc? The key thing to watch out for is driver support. Do you get clear qam on your cable feed? If so, find a model that support it and you will get the free hdtv channels.

 

[thescreensavers]

I am not sure about all this tv lingo stuff lol...

Just basic cable from Comcast, uh what do you mean about "clear QAM"

all these models have the OTA antenna thing.. the 600&650 dont have W7 drivers out now from ATI, but still work ATI says Q1 201 for drivers.

The 750 does have W7 drivers out and is the newer card, but it does not have hardware encoding. Not exactly sure were that would help or not help me, As I am just going to just watch Live TV for now.

And since I am getting one it has to be ORB compatible

http://www.orb.com/system_requirements

600 and 650 work 100% with ORB, the 750 has some issues since it does not have hardware encoding

Edit: well the 600&650 wont work in W7 64bit, so looks like thats out...

Any other brands you guys could recommend?

 

[sivart]

If you watch a lot of sports in that room, I wouldn't recommend doing this. The response time of most monitors (you didn't mention yours) is not up to par even with your entry level TV's. Thus, you will end up with a lot of "smearing" in fast motion scenes.

If you are going from a tube TV (basic cable) to the USB tuner, just make sure that it has an NTSC tuner. Don't expect a picture anywhere as nice as a tube TV for the analog channels. HD channels (unencrypted digital - clear QAM) should look fairly good depending on your monitor.

 

[thescreensavers]

^ nah its mostly for 2-3 hours worth of TV. Just something to watch before I go to sleep.

I just need to find one thats good and works with WMC and has a remote I guess.

 

[sivart]

AverMedia or Happauge tuners would be a good choice and should both work with Windows 7 Media Center.

I personally have had better luck with the Happauge, but both are nice. Both should have packages with remotes. Just make sure you get one with an NTSC tuner for basic cable and QAM for unencrypted (mainly locals) digital channels.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/prods_hvr_external.html
http://www.avermedia-usa.com/AVerTV/product/ProductList.aspx?IID=3

 

[Synomenon]

I'm using a Hauppauge HVR-1950 and it works very well w/ WMC though I use SnapStream BeyondTV most of the time.

Fry's also has a USB TV Wonder HD 650 combo at an awesome price:
http://www.frys.com/product/6124759

 

[thescreensavers]

^ [FONT=Georgia, serif]Shipping:[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial]Unavailable[/FONT] PHUCK!

Bah thanks for the link though, I found an older TV I think Ill just use that for now :O.

 

[manimal]

I have a couple of tuners, avermedia, 2 happauges-spelling- and 2 ati 650s...

The ati tuners are junk, the drivers are horrible, why in the world is catalyst neccesary to load drivers for a tv tuner. Win 7 support has been nonexistent till a week ago, etc....

Get a 1600 happaugee or the dual tuner model for 40 bucks more.

OT: Man miss the screensavers the show. AOTS is a joke now...Back in the day I worked for Ziff davis and the production staff over there were real good peeps. Kate, Leo, kat and the onscreen talent wasnt the most charismatic but you just had to like them..What was the name of the mod guy with the japanese name?

 

[thescreensavers]

I have a couple of tuners, avermedia, 2 happauges-spelling- and 2 ati 650s...

The ati tuners are junk, the drivers are horrible, why in the world is catalyst neccesary to load drivers for a tv tuner. Win 7 support has been nonexistent till a week ago, etc....

Get a 1600 happaugee or the dual tuner model for 40 bucks more.

OT: Man miss the screensavers the show. AOTS is a joke now...Back in the day I worked for Ziff davis and the production staff over there were real good peeps. Kate, Leo, kat and the onscreen talent wasnt the most charismatic but you just had to like them..What was the name of the mod guy with the japanese name?

Yoshi?

Yea, TSS was the bomb. Thank god I had a chance to see it live too bad it was on a Wednesday , I wanted to get a Thursday since its a Lan Part! powered by Nvida ya ya ya..ya

I did get to see Patrick Norton, Smash a SNES( I think thats what It was :O) with a sledge hammer lol.

 

[zeno110]

hi i bought the diamond ati 650 hd combo USB card and it worked fine with my NTSC analog cable from shaw. i did not like the software that came w the tv because the controls are laggy and slow plus it took 2 seconds to change a channel. I was able to get it to work with GBPVR which is 100x nicer.

like the poster above mentioned. The quality of the analog signal on a tuner card does not match my regular TV with the same cable input. But it is a lot better then some of the other brands so it is 100% watchable. If you do a search on this card, you will find it has one of the best picture quality when it comes to analog signal.