TV tuner for Vista

[spaztic7]

Ok... After getting lost in the sea of threads, I gave up looking. Now to the question.

I am thinking about getting a TV tuner for my PC but I know nothing about this area. What is the best or good TV tuner cards that work in Vista? I would like to budget myself for under $100 and the lower the better. Also, will it matter what my video card is? Lastly, Is it worth having the TV card in my comp or should I just use my TV to watch... um... well... TV?

I don't record TV shows right now, but it would be nice to start! I can do that with one, right?

 

[RetiredChief]

I just bought the Hauppauge HVR 1600 from CompUsa for $70, after $20 Mail in rebate. I have it working in bout XP Pro and Vista Business. Picture qualitity WAS NOT as good as previous ATI All-in-wonder Card - 9800 , 9700, and 1300 (Do not work under Vista). ATI TV wonder is suppose to be better.

Alternative: I have a Liteon DVD recorder Md 5001. My Computer monitor sits on it. I can record to it and it Has Composite and S-Video outputs. You could go this route and just get a video card with composite/S-Video inputs.

 

[spaztic7]

I have a 8800GTX BFG OC2.... It dose everything except the TV tuner, make dinner, and pay the bills. I will be looking at this card though. Is this Hauppauge HVR 1600 HD?

 

[RetiredChief]

spaztic
1. It is dual tuner: (1) for analog (Cable/dish/overtheair and (2) ATSC digital with supports upto 1080i OverThe Ait Broadcasts NOT: it does NOT support cable/Dish HD. There are some problems between Cable/Dish networks - Vista DRM - and Card companys for a true Cable ready comuter card for digital viewing/recording.

Both:
I may have been a little hasty on picture quality. Need to check my co-ax.
can not verify the ATSC reception (1) do not have an antenna and (2) not sure if any stations are broadcasting in this area. ATSC broadcasts are still spotty. Comments from others, where available, indicate it is good. Need to check your area - found a web site the list cities where it is available (forgat where it was, but you can google it)

 

[eric54]

I have the 1600 tuner and i'll agree the picture quality is not as good as ATI's, however it doesn't drain CPU use so you can watch tv and do other things at the same time.

I used to use an ATI tuner but it doesn't have drivers for vista, hence i got this new one. The software with ati's tuners are crap, they hog nearly 100% processor use and lacks the elegance of WMC. Having a dual display setup I like to watch tv and play games at the same time so the importance of a hardware encoder is priceless. Hauppauge and Microsoft worked together to make sure it was compatible and supported by vista out of the box. The installation was as simple as putting the card in, booting, vista finding the tuner and setting up WMC. I didn't even have to dl the drivers for it (although i did anyway).

Suffice to say the 1600 is an excellent tuner more than capable of delivering a decent/good picture and allows the possibility to get HD over the ATSC network. Pairing it with WMC makes it hands down the best pick of the bunch.

Caveat for the ATI tuners make sure they are Windows Vista Premium certified as it will have both 64/32 bit drivers. Vista ready means there is 32 bit drivers only.

 

[spaztic7]

Ok, So this looks like what I am going to be betting. It meets the price, gets great reveiws. The only thing that I am a little dissapointed with is that this can not decode digital cable. Although I really shouldn't care becuase I am going to use this to mainly watch Discovery channel, and History channel.

Now I am faced with the question of do I want to run SLI someday or have this tuner card? It would be nice to find something that uses that temporarly odd PCI 1x slot.


eric54 - Did you say that this is only suppoted by Vista 32 bit?

 

[rushfan]

Ok... After getting lost in the sea of threads, I gave up looking. Now to the question.

I am thinking about getting a TV tuner for my PC but I know nothing about this area. What is the best or good TV tuner cards that work in Vista? I would like to budget myself for under $100 and the lower the better. Also, will it matter what my video card is? Lastly, Is it worth having the TV card in my comp or should I just use my TV to watch... um... well... TV?

I don't record TV shows right now, but it would be nice to start! I can do that with one, right?

The MSI TV @nywhere is a decent card for under $100 (more like $50) and it works with Vista. The capture quality can be quite good, depending what software you use. You can use your computer like a PVR and rewind live TV as well as schedule recordings. I just bought one and haven't used it much but my initial impressions are good. It's better than my old ATI TV Wonder that I bought back in 2000.

One gotcha - it doesn't work with Vista's MCE, if that's what you're after. There are other cards out there that work but I'm pretty sure that they will be well over $100.

 

[spaztic7]

One gotcha - it doesn't work with Vista's MCE, if that's what you're after. There are other cards out there that work but I'm pretty sure that they will be well over $100.

The Hauppauge HVR 1600 works with Vista's MCE from what I have read. I don't know if it can do the PVR/DVR. I am after using it in Vista's MCE and I would really like the device to be able to rewind live TV.

I am not very sure if I will even be getting one. I would like it so I can record TV shows, I kind of like the idea that I can watch antenna TV... err, live... um, air TV... and also Cable. I am very interested in the device being able to do HD on both the cable and antenna lines. Also, I would very much so prefer it to be on the PCI 1x slot. But, beggars can't be choosers.

 

[prodystopian]

I just purchased the PVR1600 but only because I do not have a PCI 1x slot. If you do have the PCI 1x slot, you should be able to find the avertv combo tuner. Here is one link:

http://www.buy.com/prod/avermedia-a...rd-pci-e xpress-atsc/q/loc/101/204025345.html

Tom's has a great review of this card and missingremote compared this card with the 1600 and say that the avertv is better.

 

[spaztic7]

A quick question, who lost the remote and why is it missing?

 

[spaztic7]

This is what I found. I like this card other then the price.

http://aver.com/mpd/combopcie_mce.html

The best price is on tiger direct for this... I am stund!

 

[prodystopian]

missingremote is the name of a website. And the card you are looking at is the one I was referring to. It has garnered great reviews and if you can afford it and have a PCIe 1x slot, I think it is your best bet.

 

[wsbsteven]

I would try thegreenbutton.com as they specialize in this area.

 

[spaztic7]

thegreenbutton.com? I will give them a try. Thanks for the help!