PCI TV Tuner Card - Recommendations.

[Pickerz420]

Hi all,

Looking at getting a TV Tuner for my rig as its payday.

Don't no much about them and to be honest the dvb-t/-s/ etc. confuses the hell out of me! I've had a quick look over the forums and some component sites but cannot for the life of me work out which card I need!

I have cable TV provided by Virgin Media and would like a TV Tuner card so that I can watch all the free-to-air channels that are broadcasted. I would also like to be able to record programs to my hard drive.

Could anybody point me in the right direction or reccomend any specific brand and model? My budget is looking at below £50 if possible and I'd like a PCI interface as opposed to a USB stick.

Thanks in advanced.

 

[notarat]

I use the Hauppauge HVR-1600 (it's PCI) in one of my machines and it works fine. 2 Tuners (Analog & Digital) and FM Radio.

I use the PCIx1 version of the card, the HVR-1800 as well in my other computer.
I nly use the WHQL Drivers for them from Windows Update because the software that comes with the cards sucks, but the cards perform great and I've never had problems with either one.

 

[Pickerz420]

Okay great thanks for the reply, and do you receive your TV via cable from Virgin?

 

[notarat]

Okay great thanks for the reply, and do you receive your TV via cable from Virgin?

I'm not in merry ol' England so I cannot speak with certainty on whether or not it would work with Virgin.

One would assume that the product for the British market would be configured to work with your telly provider.

Are there any local mom & pop computer shops you can ring up and ask? You may get a faster response that way.

Edited to add

I can say that, in my area I can pick up all the over the air free digital channels because I have a good antenna, and I can also use the cable wire connection to pick up local channels and Windows 7's Media Center records everything just fine. I'm very satisfied wtih its performance, actually.

 

[Randyman...]

Look into the Ethernet type tuner cards, too. I'm using a pair of the HD HomeRun Dual Tuner models for my ITX HTPC as dual PCIe cards wouldn't fit. I use them for ATSC OTA, but I believe they work for non-encrypted Clear-QAM Cable as well...