TV Tuner cards anyone?

blade · Post by **blade** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:23 pm

Anyone have one? if so what kind and how do you like it.

Just getting into them so I am still learning. Have a hauppauge pci stereo tuner card which I never used before and couldn't find the connectors for it so I traded for a hauppauge usb mono tuner from FP. It worked just great, very easy to setup. Then after I got powervcr I wanted stereo sound so after searching more I found the connectors for the pci card.

The picture is better with the pci card than the usb one, and of course the sound is much better. I've tried various software to record programs and the best I've tried are windvr and powervcr II. After trying them both I Got the full version powervcr and I am pleased.

Recording and saving as an avi takes up HUGE disk space, something like 8 minutes = 250 megs. But saving as a vcd it uses about 600 megs for an hour of recording.

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:35 pm

I was thinking of getting one, what is pci card you have, i might be interested in getting one of those.

blade · Post by **blade** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:01 pm

The one I have is no longer listed on their site.
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm#pci

But it seems to be working well now. Newegg appears to be the best place to get tv tuner cards. They have a sale on a leadtek version for 59.99 shipped, see here Includes remote and is stereo. Seems to be the best budget tv tuner available now.

From reading around I've found the cards that have the best picture are based on the newer 880 chipset, like this Asus TV Tuner . Mine is based on the 878 chipset, but the pic is still pretty good.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:06 pm

i have a usb tvwonder and a pci one at work - can't remember brand - i'l check tomorrow -

haven't really used the tv wonder yet -

the one at work is plain vanilla but works very well and lets you fine tune the frequency - has basic record and still photo - i used ti with tv and with a wireless surveillance cam - it is a Pinnacle Studio PCTV and it was quite good- i bought it used here for $30 or something -

i know that cak has a pci tv tuner in his fs/ft box as well

I also have an 8500DV AIW - which has a lot more features but i really don't watch tv that much so it's kind of a waste - probably sell it at some point and use a pc tv card if i need one

blade · Post by **blade** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:24 pm

know that cak has a pci tv tuner in his fs/ft box as well

Where? I must be missing it.

I just watch sports mainly, then animal channels like animal planet or discovery. Just can't stand commercials. Sometimes movies, cnn, etcc. Though now I'm finding I have it on more, the novelty I guess.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 6:44 am

cak had his posted at AT last fall - i pm'd him about it and he replied like a week ago

- he still had it - you can find the details there

MegaVectra · Post by **MegaVectra** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:42 am

I have the Hauppauge Wintv-Radio, which until recently I didn't use because it didn't play well with the Via chipset. I'm using it on an Intel board, now. It works well enough.

The only problem I've noticed is XP "forgets" it's installed on boot up. I have to manually "scan for hardware changes" in the device manager.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:53 am

mine is installed in my "ricearoni" work puter - hp brio/p3 500 with added 40x liteon, 64 MB PCI Radeon 7000 and TV Card

running 98SE - absolutely no hardware issues with mine

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 4:56 pm

I'm going to be getting one come May for my college years, as there will be no room for TV and big computer monitor. I will probably get an ATI AIW 9700 Pro at that point in time.

Gand1 · Post by **Gand1** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:41 pm

I've got an ATI TV wonder PCI. Works well enough to watch. The only goofy thing is this card seems to have a problem with frequency. When I turn it on the pic is scrambled and I have to switch my resolution from 32bit to 16 and then back again if I want. They state this is a known issue with some video cards but for Christ sake, I have an ATI 9700pro! Stupid drivers!

nero wolfe · Post by **nero wolfe** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:53 pm

i have a all in wonder and it works great

BillyGoat · Post by **BillyGoat** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 11:15 pm

ive heard creative of all people has one called the digital vcr, turns your computer into a tive, awesoe quality, onchip mpeg encoding wireless remote, 99.00 seems like a good buy to me

blade · Post by **blade** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 12:01 pm

Any of you guys record tv programs/sports? If so how do you do it and what do you use.

I want to record the Super Bowl so I have been experimenting with various ways. First way was recording as mpeg 2, that looks the best but that takes mucho hard drive space and it will not fit on any cd. Then tried recording as a vcd, that works fine and I assume it'll play on a dvd player that plays vcd's. My dvd player doesn't play vcd's so I prefer divx. Been trying to hold out for a dvd player that plays divx.

VCD quality isn't the best on a monitor so I recorded some test programs as mpeg 2, best quality. That takes about a gig per 30 minutes so a lot of hard drive space is needed if you record a long program. But then I converted to divx/xvid using vidomi. After the conversion it looked great!

Same basic idea as converting a dvd to divx.

So that's what I'll use to record the super bowl.

But, there is a program called showshifter that lets you record a program and it will save/record it as divx. Anyone use that?

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 8:42 am

That's so weird... i was just going to ask about these because i want one

I need a new video card too, so i want a Radeon All-In-Wonder. What is the best all-in-wonder radeon you can get? Pricewatch seems to be down at the moment. I can't afford the 9700 one (if there is one), but a 9500 would be great. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Here are my system specs: (because it seems like it does matter)

AMD Athlon XP 1900+
Abit KR7A-133 (yes, a Via chipset )*)
Kingsotn 512MB PC2100 DDR

I don't think any other hardware really matters, besides the fact that i have a 100GB Western Digital w/ 8MB cache for plenty for room to record things

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 8:52 am

I just looked into it a bit... It seems the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700(PRO?) is like $450 (sounds nice, but not going to happen, i'd rather have a Geforce FX). The ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 seems more affordable @ $200. But then again, i have a Geforce Ti500, and i was looking for a performence upgrade. Although the 8500 is clocked at 275MHz and my Geforce 3 Ti500 is something like 245MHz, it still has 64MB ram. Would it be cheaper to get the ATI 9500 128MB that i want for $150 and then get a TV tuner seperate? From the 10 minutes i have been looking, it seems that is a good choice because the ATI TV Tuners don't seem to break $50. I will get much better performence out of the 9500 (i'll use that software to open the other 4 pipelines and then overclock to 9700 Pro speeds) and pay $50 for the TV Tuner. In theory i'll have something like a ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro for $200.