whats the diff between Tv Tuner, TV OUT, and capture cards?

[MaxDSP]

I have a RivaTNT 16MB in my PC rite now but I want to be able to watch TV (basic and cable) on the PC.I saw this deal on Hauppage WinTV but am not sure how it would work with the vid card I have rite now. Which would be the best upgrade for me? I also need to do a vid card upgrade to get better performance in games but am not sure what I need and how the diff cards would react to each other: Tv Tuner, TV OUT, and capture cards? Can I have a TV Tuner AND a vid card for games in the same PC or will something like the ATI all-in-wonder take over both duties? Im looking for an agp 32 MB vid card for about $50. If that cant be done, can I put the WinTV Hauppage in my PC w/o any problems?

SOYO K7VIA
1 GHz Athlon
256MB PC1333
RivaTNT 16MB (PCI)
Toshiba 16x DVD
Philips 804K CDRW
40GB 7200 RPM Maxtor
PowerDVD

 

[NateSLC]

The ATI All-In-Wonder will take over all of those functions for you. Anand's review of the TV tuner features on this board put it at the top. TV OUT connection options are plentiful. I have used the capture feature using ATI's software and it is adequate but a bit buggy.

I don't know if 3rd party video capture software support the All-In-Wonder. Someone else will have to answer that.

Edit:

<< Im looking for an agp 32 MB vid card for about $50. >>

The All-In-Wonder Radeon will set you back quite a bit more than $50. Last time I looked at pricewatch.com they were closer to $175.

 

[Nazo]

I can give a few more details if you like. TV Out is of course fairly obvious, it outputs the video that it also sends to your screen to a TV. Some only allow you to have one display at a time, eg your monitor + no tv or no monitor + tv, but some allow both at once. TV Out is limited typically to resolutions no higher than 800x600 due to the low resolution of tvs (actually they are only about 352x240 for a normal tv) for higher resolutions you'd want to use a SVIDEO out which is what things such as DVD players use to show that really high resolution on your TV (704x480) and computers will usually allow you to use well over the actual resolution of the tv, but if you go up too high and it will let you it will be very hard to read.

A tv tuner gives a card the ability to show and to capture from actual tv stations. It's kind of like making your computer a VCR. It's best to have a TV tuner built into your video card because seperate cards don't always work well with certain video cards.

Video in on a card with no tuner means that it has the ability to accept video in through RCA type jacks such as from a VCR. This is what I'm using, and the picture can be a little better than a card with a tv tuner because sometimes some tuners aren't very good (some people tell me that brooktree brand tuners are the worst)

SVIDEO in and SVIDEO out basically work exactly the same as video in and video out but higher resolutions.

Capturing is dependant on the drivers for the card, but there is a somewhat standard VFW capturing that if yours supports you can capture in just about any program that can capture. Try using WebTV and if that is able to show the video in/tv tuner then you know that you can most likely capture in 3rd party programs such as AVI_IO.