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Best TV Tuner Card?

Forum Graphic & Displays : TV/Video Cards - Best TV Tuner Card?

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calmstateofmind   07-10-2009 at 06:07:10 AM

I'm looking to get a TV Tuner card for my computer and was just wanting a list of some choices. Maybe some of you have had good experience with a certain brand/model and wouldn't mind pointing me the right direction.

Thanks.



-Charles

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JessieJ   07-10-2009 at 06:28:53 AM
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Not alot of responses down in this forum. You might want to visit Newegg dot com. They have tons of reviews from actual posters. You can get a feel for picture quality / bugginess of applications included / etc by reading their reviews - and most of them are from verified purchasers.

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calmstateofmind   07-10-2009 at 06:30:50 AM
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JessieJ wrote :

Not alot of responses down in this forum. You might want to visit Newegg dot com. They have tons of reviews from actual posters. You can get a feel for picture quality / bugginess of applications included / etc by reading their reviews - and most of them are from verified purchasers.




Thanks for the heads up!



-Charles

Reply to calmstateofmind
Wolfshadw   07-10-2009 at 11:24:33 AM
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I see a lot of people recommending this Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual TV Tuner. Personally, I use the AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe ATSC/NTSC/QAM TV Tuner Card and have had no issues with it over the last year.

-Wolf sends

------------------------------ System Specs:
Gigabyte EP43-UD3L Intel Core2Quad Q8400 8 Gig RAM
NVidia Geforce 8800GTS-640/Creative X-FI Extreme Music/Dual-Boot XP-64&Server2008
 Reply to Wolfshadw
leon2006   07-10-2009 at 12:48:26 PM
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Hauppauge 2250 works well with Vista-64 windows media-center. You also have an option of using Hauppauge TV Software which also runs well.

The 2250 is the only Tuner that provides Dual Hybrid Tuner. Any of the two can run as Digital, Analog, or both (2 Analog or 2 Digital).

It has an accessory for you to control your cable or Satelite BOX.

I made HD recording for HD 1080i from Over the Air (ATSC) and CLEAR QAM. It’s awesome. The Analog TV (NTSC) is also great. I don't watch NTSC TV anymore but from time to time I do check and see how the card performs. So far NTSC TV is great as well.

I programmed it to record HD Shows for 2 days none stop just to check it out. Everything works out fine.

Be sure to have a big drive. I have 1 TB drive just for dumping media files. The biggest single HD -TV recording that I made is ~ 27GByte to 30Gbyte. I did that with 2009 Grammy Show, Superbowl and Olympic Basketball Games.

Here is the path for more information.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/prod [...] r2250.html

This is the exact unit that I got. It includes the controls for cable/satellite box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815116036

Other TV Tuners I tried
Hauppauge 1800/1600: Software is great and works well with media center for Vista-64. HD video is good but the Analog TV reproduction is a degraded version.

ATI-650 PCIE, ATI-600 PCI: One of the best hardware that I have seen.
- Software is buggy and requires a lot of work to run with Windows Media Center.
- The HD input is prone to failure. I had my board replaced twice.
- HD TV recording has bug. It is limited to 4Gbytes then the TV stops recording with an error flag.

AVERMEDIA Combo PCIE: The board that I got never work so I returned it.

Pinnacle PCI TV: One of the best HD TV that I have tested. The software is behind. Bug resolution is open-ended.

Here is a site for additional info on PC TV comparison for your reference

http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/comparetuners.html

For GOOD ATSC (HD TV) reception use an Amplified Antenna. You can get it from Best Buy or Wal-Mart for ~ $20 to $30.


------------------------------ Q6600: Maximus Formula: Zalman 9700LED8GByte: Crucial Ballistics 4-4-4-12: PC6400; Vista Ultimate-64BFG XOC 4890; Disp: 70 Inch HDTV: Hauppage 2250 HDTV Tuner1.4TByte: 2x750Gbyte; RAID0; Case: Antec 900: PS:Antec Quatro 850
 Reply to leon2006
calmstateofmind   07-10-2009 at 05:16:19 PM
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Yeah, I've got a 500 GB HDD and then a 1 TB external, as well as another TB networked at my house. And yeah, when I worked at Circuit City I remembered Pinnacle being a heavy hitter when it came to Computer/TV hardware. I'll do a little more research on the Hauppauge 2250 and might try it out. Thanks for the posts.



-Charles

Reply to calmstateofmind
ram1009   07-10-2009 at 05:35:07 PM
- 0 +

calmstateofmind wrote :

I'm looking to get a TV Tuner card for my computer and was just wanting a list of some choices. Maybe some of you have had good experience with a certain brand/model and wouldn't mind pointing me the right direction.

Thanks.



-Charles



I would like to add a question to this post. Do these TV tuner cards replace a regular video card or can they co-habitate in the same machine?

Message quoted 1 times
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geofelt   07-10-2009 at 05:47:10 PM
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ram1009 wrote :

I would like to add a question to this post. Do these TV tuner cards replace a regular video card or can they co-habitate in the same machine?


Tuner cards are complimentary. They recieve signals and decode them only. You still need a video card to output the results.

Reply to geofelt
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