Is a TV Tuner Card a wise investment?

[rawr4dj]

Well simply put I will be going to college this fall and staying in a dorm. My dorm room has a COAX cable that outputs basic cable. The dilemma is that I am not taking a TV with me, because I use my 27" HP Monitor with my AT&T U-verse Box via HDMI. My monitor of course doesn't have COAX input. So if I got a TV Tuner Card, would I be able to just screw the COAX from my dorm rooms wall into the back of the computer and then somehow watch "TV on my monitor through my Computer?

 

[smorizio]

Well simply put I will be going to college this fall and staying in a dorm. My dorm room has a COAX cable that outputs basic cable. The dilemma is that I am not taking a TV with me, because I use my 27" HP Monitor with my AT&T U-verse Box via HDMI. My monitor of course doesn't have COAX input. So if I got a TV Tuner Card, would I be able to just screw the COAX from my dorm rooms wall into the back of the computer and then somehow watch "TV on my monitor through my Computer?

as long as the collage cable output is analog the old 2-66 cable tv outout the old cable tv cards should work fine if not you need a cable box. the do make newer tv cards for newer digital comcast cable.

 

[szaboaz]

Yes, and there are hybrid cards too which can do analog and digital too. And it don't have to be a PCI card, it can be an USB stick too. Two things to watch out for:
1) does it support DVB-C? (If that's the one that you have on your cable.) Being "digital" can mean DVB-T (terrestrial).
2) does it do hardware decoding (for actual cards, not for USB sticks) You'll know this right from the price, hardware decoding is much more expensive. This really matters only for (digital) HD channels, and it's not even necessary, if you have a recent video card which supports hardware video decoding, because with the right tv program and right codec, it will work without heavy processor load.


I have bought a Pinnacle hybrid tv tuner USB stick a couple years ago, and I didn't regret it. I can use it with my laptop, like I had an actual tv.