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TV tuners?

M

Max-Powers

Gawd
Joined
Jan 9, 2005
Messages
558
in the army in a barracks. want to watch tv but decent tvs are like $200. i would like to get a tv tuner. then i could save some money and get a flat panel moniter, which i would love. i know nothing about tv tuners. what the average price of a tv tuner? any recomendations? i would also want to play ps2 on it, i can do that right?


athlon xp 2k
gforce fx 5600
win2k
(cant remember my mobo. at the library...)
 
Haupage is supposed to make the best... I' pay about 50 for a decent one and yes ps2 on tv tuner works.

~Adam
 
I say go with a WinTV PVR-150 from Haupagges (sp?). I've read good reviews about it and you can get it for $100.

Or the Winfast2000 (leadtek) from newegg for $50.
 
I've been seriously considering the PVR-150 myself. You can actually get them for around $80 if you hunt online (tip, do not get the MCE edition). Big advantage is you can timeshift your shows, and it has a hardware MPEG-2 encoder for saving shows to disk, should you want to keep a whole season of your favorite shows, then burn them to DVD's.
 
LoneWolf said:
(tip, do not get the MCE edition).
Click to expand...
Why not? Theres nothing functionally different between the non MCE and the MCE version. :rolleyes:

There are two kinds of TV tuners out there, software based encoders and hardware based encoders. The better being the hardware based encoders since they don't rely on your total system specs to deleliver great image quality. Down side is that since everything that goes into the hardware based tuner is encoded into MPEG2 there is a delay of 2-3 seconds that makes playing consoles terrible and not worth it. ATI does have a fantastic hardware based card, E-Home Wonder. The way it gets around the delay is because ATI uses their Rage Theater200 chip for the video in and video out stuff and a CX23416 MPEG2 hardware encoder for the TV input.

Cards to look for:
Hauppauge PVR 150/250 (MCE versions as well)
ATI E-Home Wonder (With FM)

Anyways you might want to check out the HTPC subforum for some info on them.
http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=103
 
CrimandEvil said:
Why not? Theres nothing functionally different between the non MCE and the MCE version. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The MCE edition does not come with the remote, for one...if you're making an HTPC box, thats important IMO. So, yes, there is a difference in what comes in the box. I didn't say the card was any different.
 
If your building an HTPC you'll want something more full featured then that remote. They've always been good starter remotes though.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Down side is that since everything that goes into the hardware based tuner is encoded into MPEG2 there is a delay of 2-3 seconds that makes playing consoles terrible and not worth it.
Click to expand...

the main reason i want a tv tuner is so i can spend the money i would have spent on a tv, and buy a nice flat screen moniter. (i just got a old regular moniter right now) so i have no tv, so i must play ps2 on my pc. whats this about a delay? i dont plan on recording tv or anything special like that. which cards under $100 have no delay and got good quality
if i dont have cable, can i buy an antenna or somthing that hooks up to the tv tuner so i can watch local programs?
 
CrimandEvil said:
Down side is that since everything that goes into the hardware based tuner is encoded into MPEG2 there is a delay of 2-3 seconds that makes playing consoles terrible and not worth it.
Click to expand...

in my experience, this is only true if you are RECORDING.. if you are just viewing.. there is no delay.

My pvr-150 [which recently died .. boo!] has been sat right next to a "real" tv with perfectly sync'ed video

hit record..
yep.

3 second lag
 
My 2 cents:

Hauppauge PVR 250

Hardware decoding is the only way to go.
What's real nice is I can hit the pause button and the hit the head and grab a brew and not miss a stich and surf the [H] and watch TV all at the same time. Whoa I'm multi tasking.....WOOT :eek:
 
I'm in the market right now for a $50 or lower TV Tuner. Dont need anything special really, just want to watch TV on my computer so I can get rid of my ugly TV that's sitting near (its going to be replaced by a linux box soon). Cleanslate, what are your personal experiene with that card? Its within my budget which is really good. If you wouldnt mind, I'd just like to know what all you use it for and how it handles it all.
 
well I use it for digital cable and I notice no difference between it and regular cable from a cable box. I recorded and it recorded just fine in uncompressed mode. Tell me to try to do something with this card and I'll try it. The card I have is the one without the audio in and audio out so i can't comment on the audio side of that card =/.

~Adam
 
Thanks, just was wondering about quality of TV playback on the computer.

I think I'm gonna be picking this up soon, thanks Cleanslate. :)
 
Hey CleanSlate,what is your CPU usage?
I'm runnin 1280 x 1024 and TV window is about 8' x 5" ,
CPU at18 % as I write this.
Is your TV card Soft or Hard encoding?
 
It's a nice card...tood bad the drivers keep corrupting my sound card drivers....and the bundled software absolutely sucks...
 
i paid 28$ for mine. its so ghetto, it doesn't even have a name! i got it off ebay and the instructions must have been translated by babblefish. i couldn't understand a word of it.

its been a year and it works just fine.

i would suggest spending a little bit more for a quality brand.
 
Laforge said:
in my experience, this is only true if you are RECORDING.. if you are just viewing.. there is no delay.

My pvr-150 [which recently died .. boo!] has been sat right next to a "real" tv with perfectly sync'ed video

hit record..
yep.

3 second lag
Click to expand...
what software are you using? the 150 really has a live preview mode?
 
My cpu usage is about 8% to 13% in regular cable tv mode. That's about the same as playing mp3s for me.

~Adam
 
as for the tv tuners, i remember i had one and the video had static. is that normal for a tv tuner? are they clear as a tv should be? i was always wondering if thats how they all are, and if so why?
 
What is the best card to get for playing games? I just bought Resident Evil 4 on my Gamecube and I want to hook it up to my PC to get the better res. Would the PVR-150 give me that lag time?
 
Chams said:
What is the best card to get for playing games? I just bought Resident Evil 4 on my Gamecube and I want to hook it up to my PC to get the better res. Would the PVR-150 give me that lag time?
Click to expand...


Well, YMMV, but, what I'm saying is this :

On MY system, the PVR-150 offered no lag.

Keep in mind, you have to be able to hook it up via COAXIAL cable..

Does the GC output video on coax?

or is it not svideo?
 
On this one, it has a video-in (yellow, red, white connectors) converter to s-video and has an s-video-in. So you could hook up any console but I've yet to try it so I dont really know. You have to think though, if it can do encoded cable just fine, it SHOULD be able to do game cube or other consoles just fine. At least that's how I look at it.

~Adam
 
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