Warm: Leadtek TV2000XP TV/FM tuner card @ newegg

[AmdInside]

Sorry if this is not a really great deal. Its my first time but I thought this was a pretty good price for the features and quality that this tuner offers:

Leadtek TV2000XP TV/FM MULTIMEDIA CARD

Its only $66 at newegg, has tv tuner and fm tuner and remote control. ATI TV Wonder sucks under Windows XP (I know, I've tried it) and so this may be a good replacement.

Here is a review of the product:

Review

Enjoy

Edit: Price dropped to $66 down from $69.

 

[Tung]

wow.. awesome card!
wonder if bestbuy has this

 

[Dacalo]

cool card... but kind of expensive of for me

 

[Fatboy420]

Wow, stability looks really nice... Hmm, I might bite on this one.

 

[TechDreamer]

Wow! A TV tuner card that ships with working XP drivers and robust and reliable software. This has to be a first in the history of tuner cards! I have a Studio PCTV that is working great for me, but it took TONS of research and the use of third party drivers and software. Setting up these cards will make you a friggin computer expert or die trying. It's about time a company made some headway into making these things useful for mere mortals.

 

[andyg427]

FYI Fry's has this for $69 after a $30 rebate (i assume its a fry's rebate not manufacturer) so this is pretty good deal looks like

 

[RU482]

<< Wow! A TV tuner card that ships with working XP drivers and robust and reliable software. This has to be a first in the history of tuner cards! I have a Studio PCTV that is working great for me, but it took TONS of research and the use of third party drivers and software. Setting up these cards will make you a friggin computer expert or die trying. It's about time a company made some headway into making these things useful for mere mortals. >>



Amen brother

I want to smash my friggen TV Wonder VE card...crap software, crap drivers, crap quality

 

[Dacalo]

After shipping and tax, it's around $82

 

[Maverick319]

I have been wrestling with my ATI TV WonderWhy-I-Bought ATI card all day. I LOVE my Leadtek Geforce2 GTS, and this card has everything I was looking for and more. Mine should be winging it's way to me shortly via Fed-Ex, and I can't wait.


Thanks for the link and review AmdInside, this is EXACTLY what I was looking for.

 

[fengpc]

Got this one from Fry's and I like it. The biggest issue of it so far is that I can not get TV Stereo audio output from it, nor the MTS. May be I did not find out the right setting yet. Oh well.

 

[Dacalo]

i saw the diagram for the card and it seems like it does not connect to the graphic card as passthrough... so how does it connect to the monitor?

 

[7pants]

god, I wasn't even seriously in the market for a tv card until I saw this post, and now here I go blowing $70 on one. Hehe oh well now I'll be able to watch tv in my room and listen to the radio. I had to order a net card from newegg anyway, so that just pushed me over the top. Sounds like the perfect tv card. I guess I can hook up my ps2 through this instead of the crappy vga box I bought, and maybe I can make some of my money back selling that. I wonder if you can program the remote to work with dvd playback software. That would be the icing on the cake.

Oh, and to Dacalo, you're right, it doesn't appear to have any sort of video card pass through business. I guess it must just send the video data over the pci bus in digital form, and the OS/application sends that to the video card, which displays it in the window. At least that's my best guess.

 

[Maverick319]

You are correct 7Pants, it doesnt use a pass-thru cable as it does send the video over the PCI bus. The big difference is that it has native support up to 1280x1068 resolution, where some other cards max out at 640x480 and then stretch the image to larger resolutions. I have an ATI TV Wonder-why-I-bought-it, and I got it to work under XP, but the Leadtek card seems to be the perfect card I was looking for while wrestling with the drivers.


And even the TV-Wonder with it's external S-Video/Composite/Stereo L-R adaptor allows you to hook up a Nintendo/PSx/X-Box/VCR/DVD player and get a reasonable amount of video out of anything you hook up. The Leadtek should be even better.


And FengPC, If you go to Leadtek's website and enter TV Card and 2000XP, there is a beta driver dated 3-28-02 to try with the card. At least we know Leadtek is serious about supporting the thing and is developing drivers unlike EVERY other TV card manufacturer.

 

[SolderSucker]

If you ask me, I think the Studio PCTV pro at CompUsa is a better value than this. Also, no ntsc tuner card can go over 720x480. So, thinking this card does 1280x1024 natively, is wrong.

 

[DDCSpeed]

Does this card do video capture? or is that a software taht does video capture?

 

[BigPlastic]

<< If you ask me, I think the Studio PCTV pro at CompUsa is a better value than this. >>



Not if you are using XP. The horrors of getting the Studio PCTV to work in XP (mentioned above) are infamous. The third party drivers have helped for some, but I personally still have problems with them. Since the card in this deal ships with XP drivers, this is a much better value - particularly to your sanity.

 

[barmstrong]

can you use this with directv? and is there software that lets you capture stuff kind of like a tivo? thanks!

 

[luv2liv]

good question!
what softwares that would let us see tv schedules, n do all of those tivo features??

 

[TechDreamer]

You can have any kind of analog video run into your computer and that includes Directv/Tivo. You can also build your own TIVO with software and a TV/Tuner card. Home Theater computers are a huge subject on their own and the AVS forums have tons of info. You can make pretty much any tuner card sing if you want to become a total video geek, but what makes this card good is that you can get going right out of the box. I have friends who see what I can do and they want the same thing, but I have to tell them good luck. I don't have the time to help them and I know they are not geeky enough to make it work on there own. I think I can now safely tell them to buy this card and not worry about having to hold their hand.

 

[SolderSucker]

I use my 3 PCTV Pro cards on Win2k and winxp. I have no problems. I use the BTwincap driver rev 5.23 and PowerVCR 2. I suppose there may be other issues such as which chipset your motherboard uses, other peripherals installed, etc. My machines have uptimes of close to a month with the combo of driver and software that i use. The only reason my machines have been restarted is because of software changes and power failures. Anyhow, i think it is ridiculous to pay $80 for a tv card.

 

[Maverick319]

But Solder Sucker, you are comparing apples to oranges. I have an ATI TV Wonder and am using DScaler under XP. Other than some audio dropouts, it works ok.

Did you read the the REVIEW and look at the SCREENSHOTS? I was impressed.


The ATI cards, as well as the PCTV cards were designed for Windows 98, where the Leadtek is designed with W2K/XP in mind, as well as DirectX 8.1. All ATI and Pinnacle have done is state their cards work in W2K/XP, albeit with diminished performance. Current support and drivers are Paramount to me, and Leadtek released beta drivers for their card on 3-28-02. The last update from ATI was June 5th, 2001.

I have (and TRUST) Leadtek, as I own a Leadtek Geforce card and it has been a happy relationship. I think Leadtek is making a name for itself in the same way Lite-On is, by offering superior products at resonable prices.


And SEEING is BELIEVING, so I will reserve my final opinion until I have it installed and working. I have high hopes and do not expect to be disappointed. If I am, I will be the first one to say so and post my findings here.

 

[Pothead]

And remember the resolution is better than the Pinnacle cards..

 

[Ziptar]

Wow! I would pick one up if I didn't just shell out $200 for a card (Builtin Hardware MPEG encoder). Great Deal if the screens look like the shots in that review, those look as good as the card I just bought.

 

[AmdInside]

I think I am going to pick up one of this cards. I posted this because I know how many people have had problems with the TV Wonder cards but thinking about it, I actually could make good use of this card.

 

[breweyez]

could some of you TVcard officianados please report on how well this card works for you...Thanks