TV-tuner +composite viewer

[Dax]

Hi there, I'm new to these tuner cards, and I would appreciate help from you.

Ok, I'd like to get a card with which I can watch unscrambled cable (through coax), and also, when I need to, plug in video game systems that use the red, yellow and white cables.

Finding a tv-tuner card is easy, but my question is, do they accept the red, yellow, and white cables as an input so I can view video games on screen too? (I'll use an adapter to convert white and red into headphone plug -> line in)

For example, I'm considering these two cards, will both of them allow me to view a composite input in addition to coax? How about viewing the video games through s-video?

<A HREF="http://www.kworld.com.tw/en/product/Studio-TV-Terminator/Studio-TV-Terminator.html" target="_new"> KWORLD 7131 </A>

<A HREF="http://www.kworld.com.tw/en/product/PVR-878/PVR-878.html" target="_new"> KWORLD 878 </A>

Also, can anyone tell me which of these cards are better? And, if you have any recommendations about other cards that I can get under $50, please let me know.

Thanks

 

[Crashman]

Most tuner cards have Composite video (an RCA plug) and coax, better ones have S-Video input. The 3 wires you speak of are Yellow: Composite Video, Red: Right channel audio, White: Left channel audio.

So tuner cards have the composite video, and some have the better S-Video connection, but what of the two audio jacks?

Tuner cards do NOT input audio. Rather, they output audio from the tuner to your sound card. Some will pass-through audio from an "input" on the card to the soundcard through cables (no processing), but that's just a gimmick because you would do the same thing by simply connecting your red and white cables to the sound card.

What you REALLY need then is just about any tuner card, since most have a Composite video input, and an adapter for the input jack on your sound card. These adapters usually cost around $3 and have 2 RCA plugs on one end (for your red and white cables) and a stereo minijack on the other end (for connecting to the input jack on the sound card).

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[Dax]

Thanks for the thorough answer. I'm going to get a card with S-video in to view console games in better quality on my screen.

 

[Crashman]

OK, S-Video. Now you still need to connect the thing to your soundcard, you can use the red and white connectors and a cheap cable adapter to connect it to your soundcard, as described in my previous post.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>