Advice on TV tuner card

I'm looking to try out a tv tuner card and i was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.

LeadTek Winfast TV2000 XP Deluxe. Comes with a cool remote. Time shifting and PIP. I had an ATI TV Wonder before and it wasn't bad but it won't run on XP so I ditched it for this and it's alot better. MSI has one that u may want to look at but I recommend the Leadtek. Go to their sites and check out the specs.

I'd get the ATi TV Wonder Pro with the remote control. It's a great card and the remote is by far the best out there.

Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 Personal Video Recorder

More expensive the most, but can you say HARDWARE!!! encoder and decoder. The card kicks.

http://www.asus.com/products/vga/tvtuner/overview.htm

i realize that there is never a bad time for britney but what has she got to do with asus?

I'm so sick of seeing Britney everywhere I go.

Do any of these do MPEG 4 compression? I'm interested in getting one myself, but dont' want to spend $140 on a Hauppage.

I was looking aroudn for the winfast 2000 card, and i found it on sale at newegg for just $50 !!!
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=14-122-132&DEPA=1

i dont think you can beat that price, now i am seriosly thinking of geting it, does anybody know what max. resolution can it record at?

Edit: I just placed an order for that card. I will post my opinion as soon as i get it working.

TheGr8s1 said:

LeadTek Winfast TV2000 XP Deluxe. Comes with a cool remote. Time shifting and PIP.

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But keep in mind that the Winfast's PIP feature doesn't allow you to watch two tv channels at the same time, it allows you to watch one tv channel and one recorded clip. (at least from what I've read).

baraka said:

But keep in mind that the Winfast's PIP feature doesn't allow you to watch two tv channels at the same time, it allows you to watch one tv channel and one recorded clip. (at least from what I've read).

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That is very true but it's still cool cuz I can walk away from my tube for a beer and come back and rewind to watch what I missed.

baraka said:

But keep in mind that the Winfast's PIP feature doesn't allow you to watch two tv channels at the same time, it allows you to watch one tv channel and one recorded clip. (at least from what I've read).

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Yes. I have read the same thing. In fact, I've read a lot about cards in the last 48 hours. Here's what I've found out:

The HDTV cards ($150-300) kick serious tail. The image resolution is supposedly superior. Link..The hardware MPEG 2 cards are very good, too (Hauppage 250 & 350 mainly)--but again, expensive (start at about $140). There are MANY cards in the $50 range that are pretty good, but lots are MONO only . Still, there are some that are pretty good. One that comes highly recommended is the Flyvideo 3000 (no, I didn't just make that name up). This is based on a Phillips chip, while just about everthing else is based on a Conexant.

The main variation among the analog stereo Connexant models is the software bundle. The Leadtek is confirmed to use any codec you have installed to encode .AVI video, but other cards may/may not do this. However, the pause live TV feature of this card is supposed to be lacking as the software that controls this feature is lacking. The Avermedia Ultra TV 350 includes superior DVD software that handles this feature well, but it's more pricy ($77). Pinnacle makes good video editing software, but only includes a trial version with its TV Tuners--AND they're expensive (around $70-90).

The all-in-wonders are supposedly very good, but are not for use in gaming systems as the 3d acceleration tends to reach obsolescence far ahead of the TV tuner portion of the card. So when you're ready to upgrade you have to get a tv tuner AND a 3d accelerator.

The bottom line is, from what I've read, that many work very well. However the devil is in the details, and reviews are not plentiful in this category as it's not "sexy" like a 3d accelerator. The reviews I've read make little comparison among competing products, and are based upon wholly subjective criteria. So what does this mean to the buyer? Make your best educated guess, and pray.

OH I did find some interesting looking software packages, too.

myhtpc is a FREEWARE program that can drive a PVR.

Showshifter is a competing product that you have to pay for, but can get a free trial of.

Sage TV makes interesting software--and they have a deal where they will bundle it with a Hauppauge 250 for like $175. They also have an interesting software piece that lets you stream from a computer with a TV tuner to another pc on your network. Can you say cool?! Sounds like a great application for 802.11g! Problem with sage is that they only have programming data from the major networks in large cities. Guess what--I don't live in a large city.

Finally, some PVR software gets scheduling data from
Titan TV. They elegedly have every TV station's schedule in the country.

Do I have a conclusion? No. I'm still unsure as to which one to get. Hope my research-in-progress will help to point some people in the right direction though.

Can anyone add to this?

AverTV Studio

chaos said:

AverTV Studio

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Can you elaborate on that? It DOES look like a good card, but why do you like it over others?

BTW the AVER TV STUDIO is the exact same thing as the Avermedia ULTRA TV 350, except the Ultra TV 350 Does CD/DVD authoring and video editing.

I have looked into this field for a while, shook my head, and didn't come back for a while. I want a TV card that doesn't completely suck, can do PVR stuff, work forever (no new OS will break the thing, I mean), and I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it. I haven't found too much info on any of the cards, but in general they all review for good, and yet as mentioned above, the devil is in the details.

For now, I'll keep reading and contemplating a purchase, however I most likely will never buy one, because I am still not too sure it will be all that I want it to be...

gt24 said:

For now, I'll keep reading and contemplating a purchase, however I most likely will never buy one, because I am still not too sure it will be all that I want it to be...

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I got my avertv refurbed from newegg in brand new condition for just $24 and I couldnt be more happy with it. It doesnt stand out from any of the other tuners out there, so I really cant say whether it's better than such-and-such a card. But I can say that you wont be disappointed if you buy one of these. Especially if yoiu can find one for $24.

Note: the avertv doesnt come with a remote, but it does work with my creative audigy 2 remote.

I knew of a couple of those sites cursor, but not myhtpc . I just the program and a couple of the plug-ins and I'm very impressed. I had put my htpc project on hold for a while, but It may be coming back to life using the great front end myhtpc offers.

The hauppage are very nice but costly. If i had the cash i would get one, especially since they are HDTV. I have also heard viewsonic makes a nifty box that turns your monitor into a hdtv but doesnt go through your computer but you cant record then.

i think overall bang for the buck if you are on a budget is hands down the leadtek deluxe for 50 bucks @ newegg.

yeah i'd love hardware decoding and encoding of the $$ hauppages but for my budget i got the leadtek about 4 months ago and love it. i

t uses titantv as well. the remote is fullfeatured even has a slick little 'boss' key. also the range of the remote is lovely.

only thing is when u install it if you have xp and directx9 DO NOT RUN THE AUTOSETUP for the drivers. download and unzip them into a folder and install one by one thru device manager. there are 4 drivers overall for this card.

plus it has a nice breakout cable with s-video and regular composite video in which i use to view stuff from a digital video camera.

recommended if you cant spend more than 60 beans on a tv tuner.

edit: also u can use mpeg4 codecs to record tv shows.