tv tuner card

I built my computer a few months ago. Recently I have gained a lot of interest in video recording and editing but with my current video card I don't have a video in. Right now I only have a really old 15" monitor and I plan on buying a 17" or 19" soon. I would love to be able to use the monitor as a TV as well because I don't have a TV. Here is the problem -- I am on a real budget and I don't want to go out and buy a new video card if I don't have to. I have an MSI geforce2 gts 32MB with tv/out. I have heard of PCI TV Tuner cards but I know virtually nothing about them. I have read articles on video cards that have the features I want but what about those PCI tv tuner cards? Are there any that have all the features and software I would need that would run with my current video card? Does anybody know where I could find any information out about them? Would it be a mistake to buy a pci tv tuner card instead of waiting and upgrading my video card later? The rest of my system is:

Asus a7m266 mobo
athlon c tbird 1.2GHZ 266 fsb
MSI geforce2 gts 32MB DDR
256MB crucial DDR-SDRAM
WD 20 gig 7200 rpm HDD
creative labs 12x10x32 cd-rw
300 watt power supply (I don't know the brand)

- alm "As long as it's funny it's okay."

Yes, you heard right. There are indeed TV Tuner cards that will let you watch TV on your monitor. They come in two flavors, USB and PCI. The USB are usually around $70-$80, while the PCI tuners can be found from $25-$70.

The 'good' ones are usually around $50. Those include the ATI Tv Wonder and TV Wonder VE(Value Edition, which is cheaper), and Hauppauge WinTV. There are more, but these seem to be the most popular.

You should be fine running a tuner card and graphics card together (just check the manufacturer's website for any incompatabilities).

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YOu might have some problems with Windoze 2000 and most TV Tuners. People have been having troubles with the ATI software working properly with that OS.



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I use and recommend the Hauppauge Win TV-PCI card. You may find a better card, but not for the money, in my opinion. I've used mine for 3 years with no problems on Windows 98 and 2000. One of the beauties of this card is it also includes FM stereo. You can get the version without the radio feature for slightly less money, but the version with radio has DBX Stereo which the lesser model does not.

Check out their site at: <A HREF="http://www.hauppauge.com/" target="_new">http://www.hauppauge.com/</A>

-- Ah sh*t! sys64738 --

Thanks everybody. I definitely have found out a lot more. As current tv tuner card owners, are there any particular features that would be very important to look for? Basically, I want to make sure that I get TV reception of course and also that I can record video (i.e. the simpsons, the x-files, and maybe movies). I just don't want to get stuck with some lame card that doesn't encode video worth sh#@, you know. Anyway, thanks again.

- alm "As long as it's funny it's okay."