I want to watch TV on my computer

I'm a big fan of the AIW series. I have a 9000 AIW in my HTPC.
 
I have an MSI TV@nywhere master for a tuner card. It also offers a FM tuner. Installed in minutes on Win XP home SP 1a. It also unscrambles HBO without a box. I also use it for converting VHS to DVD.

I have heard good things about the AIW cards too.

ThE s[H]aDoW
 
Originally posted by shadow-13x
I have an MSI TV@nywhere, It also unscrambles HBO without a box.
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Heh, whodda thunk it?

That being said, i'll recommend a seperate add-on pci tv-tuner card so it can follow your system through all its upgrades. If you get a Radeon AIW; its much more expensive + eventually you'll have to update your 3D putting you back at square one again (no tv tuner)

I recommend the Leadtek winfast deluxe for a low end card but i've also read plenty of good things about the MSI tv-anywhere. Mid/high end i'll recommend a Hauppauge PVR 250/350 (Hardware encoding=much less cpu usage).
 
The Hauppauge is also well supported by all the PVR software, too, as a side note.
 
Heh, whodda thunk it?
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Just a clarification on my comment, HBO can not be viewed on any TV in our house. If ya know what I mean. Just my computer can view it. :)

ThE s[H]aDoW
 
Originally posted by shadow-13x
Just a clarification on my comment, HBO can not be viewed on any TV in our house. If ya know what I mean. Just my computer can view it. :)

ThE s[H]aDoW
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How so please elaborate...
 
If you want the best bang for your buck get the Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe for approximately $42 from NewEgg (that's what i got mine for). It's a wonderful card, i love mine, recored TV shows flawlessly for me, i use it nearly on a daily basis to record stuff i miss. It's great quality and nearly 1/3 ofthe price of others. If you want to get more serious with the TV tuner thing, get one that is more hardware based, such as the Hauppauge PVR250.
 
How so please elaborate...
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Co-ax from pole goes in the tuner card. HBO is one of many pay channels viewable on my monitor without paying.
Co-ax from pole goes in the back of cable set top box, no HBO on TV.
Magic I tell ya. I guess they have a de-scrambler built in to their card. I have no illegal parts involved.

ThE s[H]aDoW
 
is there any limit to how many channels u can get on this thing cause my tv gets like up to 1000. just curious because some cards programs limit it to 125 or so they say, also if u play back your recording does it come as good as you see it live?
 
I have a MSI TV@nywhere and its a good card but has some big drawbacks.

Big CPU hog
won't play on a secondary monitor (hardlocks or program becomes non-responsive)
Image quality leaves a lot to be desired
No RCA Audio even though it has RCA video in


The master may be a completely dif. animal but I know that if I had paid full price for this card (got it here in FS) I would be disapointed.
 
my dream:
r420 all-in-wonder w/ HDTV
:D something along those lines

i got plenty of hdtv channels, just no nice expensive plasma tv or somthin.
 
if you want to spend a little more money, hauppauge has their pvr line.
(pvr2 usb, pvr250 pci, and pvr 350pci).

The advantage of these are that they have onboard mpeg2 hardware encoders, and the software supports limited tivo like abilities. Makes recording shows much simpler as well.

disadvantages are they cost more (about 150$) than the normal tv boards, and you cant really use them for video gaming action (1-2s delay from the encoding).

I like mine tho, can record shows about 3gb/hour for good quality.
 
I have not tried any other pay channels but HBO. I will say it does not get pay per view. I do not know how many channels it can receive, I'll look when I get home. The CPU hog issue I never noticed when recording CATV or VHS. I use a composite video in with the audio RCA plugs hooked to my Live Drive for VHS, and co-ax for CATV. I don't know how the quality would be for someone with a quality DVD player and a quality TV. I cannot afford to buy one so I think the picture looks great on my POS TV/DVD. Never tried the second monitor (don't have one) Would anyone like to view a sample DVD (sports, no pr0n) on a quality TV/DVD and post a response? I'm game to send one out on a DVD + R.

Sonic MyDVD is the hog when burning these files to DVD.

ThE s[H]aDoW
 
I have a Avermedia TV98... and yes, I've had it since 98. Been through 3 system upgrades and records pretty decently. I don't bother with Avermedia's software as DScaler does a better job at recording (Aver: 3 mins, w/o audio, 320 x 240 AND laggy. 300+ meg file).

CyberSlave: Try out DScaler here. MSI's software might be the resource hog. Avermedia used to eat up 40% or so of my CPU while it was running. DScaler runs under 20%.
 
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