TV Tuner / Capture

[FK1]

Hi everyone,

I am new here and I need some help. I want to be able to view and record from TV. I recently bought a used system with a VisionTek Xtasy Ti4600 card. Is it possible to use this card as a tv-tuner or do I have to buy a tv-tuner card ? I am not sure if my card has the 'vivo' functionality, but it came with a vivo cable. How can I tell?

If I can use my card as a tv-tuner, how can I plug the coaxial cable with the TV signal to my card? (The card does not have a connector for the coaxial cable, only the connector for vivo cable, and 2 connectors for monitors/LCDs).

Also, if I have to buy a tv tuner, can someone suggest a good one for about(prefferably less then) $100 ?

Thank a lot for any input on this.

FK1

 

[elzt]

I checked VisionTek's site, and yes, the Xtasy Ti4600 has full vivo functionality. Unfortunately, like most other graphic cards, your 4600 doesn't have build-in TV tuner. But you can connect the video-in of your 4600 to either a TV set or a VCR and then view/record TV programs on your PC.

 

[FK1]

Thanks elzt,

I think I will buy a TV tuner anyway. Can you explain why do the internal tuners offer resolutions only up to 720*480
while the external ones offer resolutions up to 1280*1024 ?

FK1

 

[Skipper007]

No NTSC video source goes to 1280X1024 (although high definition will go higher than that), so 1280X1024 the resolution you'll get on your monitor. The internal ones just let your video card do the converting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert on this.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Depends on what you mean by High Definition.

HD is CURRENTLY 780p and 1080i, so 1280x1024 is still too high.
However TV's have the advantage of edge blurring, and they really don't have a normal vertical rez. on lines. It's the horitonal that is measured.

Future HD will be more. But for now HD maxes out at 1080 X ?

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <font color=red>RED</font color=red> <font color=green>GREEN</font color=green> :tongue: GA to SK

 

[asuka]

Do you know any video capture software that ca n actually show the input source fullscreen?I've tried winproducer,pinnacle studio 8 and tv viewer but none of them worked.The problem is that i want to connect my vcr to my pc and all of them show the movie in a small video window.Plz!Help wanted

 

[elzt]

Can you resize the video window to make it full screen? I haven't used the software that you mentioned, but at least the one bundled with My Winfast GF4 vivo card is able to do that. I can change the window size just by dragging the lower right corner of the window.

 

[asuka]

Yes but it doesn't work.Which program are you using?Perhaps I could try that

 

[elzt]

I'm using Leadtek's WinFast PVR (see the link below for details), but I'm not sure if it will also work for other brands of cards.

<A HREF="http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/drive02.asp?pronameid=244" target="_new">http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/drive02.asp?pronameid=244</A>

 

[JimmyDean]

What you could do is use a VCR and use that to tune the channels. Then all you would have to do is use some program like PVCR to record

<b><font color=red>Remember kids, if you see a downed power line, suck on the end, candy comes out!</font color=red></b>

 

[Hoolio]

On this note, I have a laptop and want to do video capture (using S-Video/Phono) but I dont have a video capture built in on my laptop. Can anyone tell me the name of a decent but good one? I have a voodoo 3500 TV on my dads PC but the program used to capture and encode the video is not very good. Can anyone help me?