Recommendations for TV Tuners

ResplendentRegina · **Joined:** Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:54 pm **Posts:** 1525

cody wrote:

my laptop has 2 gb ram and vista seems to run ok.

2 gb of ram. Thats a lot. Would hope vista would run fine off one gig. Sorry not bashing ya just that 2 gig is mucho ram though. But then again Im ole school with 512 and XP :jetserl

impala101 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:51 pm

Wow! Lots of info here! I'm glad others were able to get some help too :thumbsupsm

That Fusion Gold one looked pretty good, I was also looking at the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600...anyone using it? It seems like no matter which card it is, most reviews say the software that comes with them isn't very good, and even buggy. I would guess there's good programs out there elsewhere?

Cobra · **Joined:** Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:57 pm **Posts:** 14767

impala101 wrote:

Wow! Lots of info here! I'm glad others were able to get some help too :thumbsupsm

That Fusion Gold one looked pretty good, I was also looking at the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600...anyone using it? It seems like no matter which card it is, most reviews say the software that comes with them isn't very good, and even buggy. I would guess there's good programs out there elsewhere?

I have the HVR-1600 works good with Vista media center for HD Off Air
You can record one HD and one SD channel at same time

But you missed this in the other thread

I have this Headache biggest piece of crap software ever made
I hit record and if i'm lucky it will start recording in two minutes only on HD
I can't connect a VCR because S input converter plug shows video in B & W
The audio on cable sounds bad

On sale this week

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products ... r1600.html

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Hauppaug ... tDetail.do

impala101 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:04 am

Thanks for the info Cobra :Thumb

Decisions, decisions....it seems like you can only research these things so much. All of them seem to have their good and bad points. I guess I'll give one a try, and make sure to know the return policy of the store. :mrgreen:

Any no-brainers on a video card?? I'm not a PC gamer at all; my main needs would be for HDTV, videos, and movies.

ResplendentRegina · **Joined:** Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:54 pm **Posts:** 1525

impala101 wrote:

Thanks for the info Cobra :Thumb

Decisions, decisions....it seems like you can only research these things so much. All of them seem to have their good and bad points. I guess I'll give one a try, and make sure to know the return policy of the store. :mrgreen:

Any no-brainers on a video card?? I'm not a PC gamer at all; my main needs would be for HDTV, videos, and movies.

Agreed all help has been great! In past threads have heard Fusion Gold HD card is pretty sweet.

MelvinMoogleman · **Posted:** Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:19 am

impala101 wrote:

Alright, so I want to take the plunge to get a tuner card and get into quality capping and video recording/editing...I would like to get the opinions of you guys here that I know use them and have seen the great work done, as opposed to reviews on various web sites by yoda only knows who.

As of right now, I will only be able to get over-the-air broadcasts. I would be looking for a PCI dual ATSC/NTSC tuner, but also (for future purposes) would like the capability of receiving digital cable and/or satellite signals as well. Apparently, not all cards can do digital cable/satellite signals? I'm also not sure if I would need to buy a nice HD antenna, or are the ones that come with them good enough?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this and give me some ideas. I hope to be joining the capping world soon! :mrgreen:

I used the dual-tuner card. It's now sitting in a box in the closet. I have the Hauppauge HVR-1600 installed now -- much, much better.
I discussed the capabilities of the cards with a guy from Hauppage via email and he sent me this link.
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/vista.html

I use the output from a cable box instead of direct connection from the cable. Pay attention to whether or not you're getting digital or analog signal, and use high-quality cables (those are lessons I learned).

Also ... Windows Media Center for Vista works just fine.

ResplendentRegina · **Joined:** Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:54 pm **Posts:** 1525

about HD recording with a card...can you record HD cable shows or just OTA?

MelvinMoogleman · **Posted:** Fri Dec 28, 2007 9:09 am

The only ones I've found are OTA. There isn't an internal HD card according to Hauppauge and every web site I've visited.
dslreports.com has a nice section on tv tuners with faqs and reviews.

Frankly, your best choice to go HD is a DVR that's HD-capable. They're expensive. I have a Polaroid DVR with a hard drive which is nice, but I don't use it as much as I used to. Having something that puts an mpg 2 on my desktop hard drive (the tuner card) is a lot faster for capping.

I don't have the time or obsession to cap in HD.

cody · **Joined:** Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:21 pm **Posts:** 6460

poppie wrote:

cody wrote:

my laptop has 2 gb ram and vista seems to run ok.

2 gb of ram. Thats a lot. Would hope vista would run fine off one gig. Sorry not bashing ya just that 2 gig is mucho ram though. But then again Im ole school with 512 and XP :jetserl

I got my toshiba from office depot for 599. 64x2 dual core processor 17" screen dvd super multi drive. wireless. still learning it though.

Kevin77 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:24 pm

poppie wrote:

about HD recording with a card...can you record HD cable shows or just OTA?

You can record HD from OTA and cable (and fios), but with cable the channels have to be unencrypted. This is usually only the locals. OTA is free uncompressed, and usually the best quality as long as the signal doesn't crap out.

There are ways to stream cable shows in HD resolution to your PC if you have a cable box with firewire support or an old HR-10 250 Tivo from Directv, but I would go with recording from a card before I tried that.

BTW, they do have cards for HD recording directly from satellite/cable boxes, but the cost thousands of dollars. I don't think there are many PC's that can encode HD in real time anyways so it's not a good idea.

fitz207 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:34 pm

poppie wrote:

cody wrote:

my laptop has 2 gb ram and vista seems to run ok.

2 gb of ram. Thats a lot. Would hope vista would run fine off one gig. Sorry not bashing ya just that 2 gig is mucho ram though. But then again Im ole school with 512 and XP :jetserl

It runs OK on 1gig but media center requires a good amount of ram to run smoothly with Vista.

Wide World of Women

Recommendations for TV Tuners

Who is online