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Watching TV on my Computer

T

tree_

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2004
Messages
1,707
How would I go about doing this? What hardware/software would I need? I took out my TV for more room for another computer so I want to watch it on my LCD. Thanks for any help you may have.
 
I have an Ati "all in wonder" card that has this built in. But if you hit newegg you're bound to find a tv tuner. or compUSA if you want a retail place.
 
Does the TV Tuner I buy affect anything quality of the picture wise? How does this work? Just run my cable to the card and use software to view the tv?
 
tree_ said:
Does the TV Tuner I buy affect anything quality of the picture wise? How does this work? Just run my cable to the card and use software to view the tv?
Click to expand...

the quality of the card will definately affect the pic quality. look at ATI's All In Wonders, and Happauge's cards. read reviews before buying (www.tomshardware.com www.pcmag.com)
 
a TV Tuner is what you are looking for. There are multiple possibilities when starting from there :

1. Get a PCI TV Tuner (ATI TV Wonder for example). This is a PCI expansion card in which you will plug the cable or your rabbit-ears antenna.

2. Get any card from ATI marked with "ALL-IN-WONDER". This means that card as TV Tuning capabilities and you would plug the cable directly in you video card.

3. Get an external TV Tuner (ATI TV WONDER USB for example). This will simply plug in one of your usb ports and you will plug the cable into it. (Image quality is generally lower than with 1 & 2)

4. Get a TV Tuner from another company than ATI or any video card with "Video-In" capabilities. (Image quality is generally lower than with 1, 2, or 3)

This post may look biased towards ATI. I encourage you to read reviews and find out if you should buy an ATI product when it comes to TV Tuning on a computer. As you can guess, I think so.

Happy shopping !
 
I would stay away from ATI stuff and go for a more standard card, such as the hauppauge or leadtek cards.
 
jpmkm said:
I would stay away from ATI stuff and go for a more standard card, such as the hauppauge or leadtek cards.
Click to expand...

You would stay away from ATI stuff when looking for a TV Tuner, well that's a funny one.
 
Id say if all you want to do is watch tv on your computer, let me ask you this, why? i find it completly pointless unless you have extreemly limited space. a tv would have better quality than a video card with a tv in port and it doesnt make noise like your computer, you can put it right next to your monitor if u like the space where ur computer is. if you want to record stuff yea your on the right track. aiw cards are good for that stuff. i had one but it got old and i stopped recording stuff.
 
go with the hauppauge pvr-250. it's got a dedicated mpeg2 encoder built it. you pay more for it, but it doesn't eat up CPU cycles to process video.

i've got one and it works flawlessly.
 
Well I would like to be able to also record later on. I just want to take out my 19" tv and put in my 19" LCD that I don't use and add my surround sound speakers and do it like that. I watch a lot of movies on my computer so I thought it would be a good idea. How would I go about recording things since someone brought it up?
 
Upward Index said:
You would stay away from ATI stuff when looking for a TV Tuner, well that's a funny one.
Click to expand...
How is that funny? What are the advantages of the ati cards over competing tv tuner cards? The allinwonders are pointless if he already has a card. Is capture quality really that much better with ati cards? Do you have any data to show the quality difference? By the way, I stay away from ati stuff whenever possible.
 
FlamingTeddiz said:
Id say if all you want to do is watch tv on your computer, let me ask you this, why? i find it completly pointless unless you have extreemly limited space. a tv would have better quality than a video card with a tv in port and it doesnt make noise like your computer, you can put it right next to your monitor if u like the space where ur computer is. if you want to record stuff yea your on the right track. aiw cards are good for that stuff. i had one but it got old and i stopped recording stuff.
Click to expand...
TV tuner cards are wonderful. I have a tv, but I use my tv tuner card all the time. I record tv shows with mythtv and then I can watch them whenever I want, without commercials. TV tuner cards are great with or without a tv.
 
tree: the ati and hauppauge cards both include solid tivo-equivalent software for recording and pausing live tv. both have scheduling software to automate the process as well.
 
Ahhh, thanks for the info. Now if I could just find a cheap ATi AIW card. All are over 100$ at the egg..
 
You do not need an allinwonder card. You already have a very nice video card; no need to replace it. Just get a regular tv tuner card and you'll be fine.
 
jpmkm said:
You do not need an allinwonder card. You already have a very nice video card; no need to replace it. Just get a regular tv tuner card and you'll be fine.
Click to expand...

Agreed
 
ati tv wonder pro remote control edition cost me about $70 at best buy... you can do better online
 
I bought a Hauppage TV tuner card a few months ago and it comes with pretty good features. I paid about $20 after rebates and I'm able to record shows on my PC. It has coax in, digital out and S-Video out. It's probably not top-of-the-line, but it does what I need it to. Definitely just go with a tuner card.
 
rage4order said:
I bought a Hauppage TV tuner card a few months ago and it comes with pretty good features. I paid about $20 after rebates and I'm able to record shows on my PC. It has coax in, digital out and S-Video out. It's probably not top-of-the-line, but it does what I need it to. Definitely just go with a tuner card.
Click to expand...
What card did you get for $20 that has digital(audio?) out and svideo out? That sounds quite interesting.
 
I can't find a cheap AIW card so I'll get a Tuner card. Can anyone recommend me one around the 50$ price range? No more than 50$ if possible unless I'll notice a huge quality margin. Also how can you pause or ff or rr live tv with the tuner? Do I need some special box or something? All I have now a a straight cable line from comcast in my room.
 
tree_ said:
I found one on here that seems reasonable and he has all the retail accessories.. What do you guys think? Yay or nay on that tuner?

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=849499
Click to expand...
I've never heard of that brand. If you want a good, cheap card, look into the leadtek winfast tv2000 xp card. It's a good card at a good price(around $33).
 
jpmkm said:
What card did you get for $20 that has digital(audio?) out and svideo out? That sounds quite interesting.
Click to expand...
:eek: Uhh, ya know what, it doesn't have digital audio out. My bad. I'm getting my TV and video card mixed up. Anyway, here's the one I got---> WinTVGo . Like I said, it was about $20-25 after a mail-in rebate.
 
tree_ said:
I can't find a cheap AIW card so I'll get a Tuner card. Can anyone recommend me one around the 50$ price range? No more than 50$ if possible unless I'll notice a huge quality margin. Also how can you pause or ff or rr live tv with the tuner? Do I need some special box or something? All I have now a a straight cable line from comcast in my room.
Click to expand...

considering that you already have a 6800, you dont need another graphics card....

a good hauppage card will do just fine.
 
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=15-116-304&DEPA=0

I have this card and it does everything you want it to do. You get a nice easy
channel guide+ software and can record anything in any format. You should use the
9.0 or greater multimedia drivers from ATI...

Easy to install into your PCI slot and plug you TV right into it from cable source ect. I was up and running in 15 minutes. Looks great on my Sony LCD monitor. Don't but a new video card just add this one in.

Mine has worked flawlessly for over a year now. ;)
 
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