I am currently looking to buy a TV tuner card very soon. I want to stay at a reasonable price. Looking for one that is stereo sound and has the recording capability (PVR). FM turner is not necessary to be included with the card although nice feature to have. I basically am looking for a card to be able to watch cable TV and record shows while I am away from the computer.
I have looked a little at a few cards and little reviews ...Looking for more comments, suggestions, and experience in TV tuner cards. Not sure if the USB models are any better in quality versus the PCI cards
only thing I know is the USB is obviously easier installation wise.
I also wasn't sure if the P4 hyper-threading was a problem with any particular card?
The three cards I have looked at so far:
Leadtek PCI TV/FM Tuner card - WinFast TV2000 XP Expert Edition
Some specs:
-PIP
-10 bit video decoder with adaptive comb filter, give you high quality video output
-Time-Shifting: you can pause, rewind live television and instant replays. Take your breaks during a TV show or movie and never have to miss a scene again
-Make pre-scheduled recordings of TV and FM broadcasting programs, to achieve the features of Video & Audio On Demand (uses TitanTV EPG website)
-Multifunction Remote Control
-Support Stereo audio; enjoy your high quality Entertainment
New Full function Remote control. Easier, friendly fancy user interface.
-Watch high-quality TV with stereo in full screen or a scalable window
-Direct-Burn DVD
-181 channels
$52.00 at Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-122-180&depa=0--------------------------
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ATI PCI TV Tuner Card, Model TV WONDER PRO
Some specs:
-Watch TV on your PC in stereo
-125 channels
-Digital VCR and scheduled viewing
Set the time and channel of any TV program you want to watch and ATI-TV WONDER will notify you when it comes on
No time to watch it right away? The digital VCR can record the program to your hard drive so you can view it later
Includes real-time video compression software - capture more video in MPEG format than ever before, using the same amount of disk space
$64.50 at Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-116-307&depa=0--------------------------
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Leadtek personal digital video recorder PVR2000
Some Specs:
-Full 181 channels FM Tuner
-Time-Shifting w/ Hardware MPEG Encoder
-Real-time Hardware MPEG-I/MPEG-II encoding
-Silent PVR Functionality
-Recorder-initiated Resume:
Automatically "Wake-Up" the PC from power-saving Standby or Hibernate mode to capture scheduled recordings. Rest assured that your scheduled programs would be recorded, even if you leave the PC in Standby or Hibernate mode. Will resume your PC to Standby/Hibernate/ Turn-off mode after the task is completed
-Set Recording from TitanTV EPG website
-PIP
-10-bit Video Decoder
-Hardware MPEG-II Encoder
-High-quality TV with stereo in full screen or within a scalable window
-DirectBurn : Record your favorite TV shows or home videos to VCD or DVD directly
-Multifunction Remote Control
$110.50 at Newegg.com (would consider this card if it has major advantage over other 2 cards including quality seems the one difference is the Real-time Hardware MPEG-I/MPEG-II encoding
not sure what this would buy me)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-122-200&depa=1
