TV Tuner card newbie

[Sniper82]

What all can be done with one of these? Do they act as a Tivo kinda(set it to record shows at certain times)? Or can you just watch cable on it? What all can be done with one and which is good? BTW how big HDD is needed to really be able to record shows that you don't want to miss?

 

[bluewall21]

With software, I think they are like tivos. Check out SnapStream.

 

[blodhi74]

All of the above .... does eat up a lot of space ..... a half hour show can take 20 to 30mb

 

[Sniper82]

thx

 

[Chu]

I would also reccomend a Broadcom chipset based TV card, and as a bonus they're usually pretty cheap. You can use a program called DScaler with these cards, which gives you MUCH greater image quality. Do a google search for more info.

 

[konakona]

what about brooktree (conexant?) chipset based cards? i have a hauppauge card stuck in my case, got the driver installed but not a viewing software. would dscaler work on my card? damn i am gonna have to ask the kids upstairs to extend the cable to my room in the basement

 

[Chu]

Originally posted by: Chu
I would also reccomend a Broadcom chipset based TV card, and as a bonus they're usually pretty cheap. You can use a program called DScaler with these cards, which gives you MUCH greater image quality. Do a google search for more info.

I ment brooktree/conextant. No clue why I said broadcom

 

[Josephus]

I've been pretty happy with my Leadtek tuner card. Leadtek, Hauppage(sp?) and ATI are the ones I looked at when shopping

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: blodhi74
All of the above .... does eat up a lot of space ..... a half hour show can take 20 to 30mb

Uhh, with halfway decent picture quality, you're looking easily at least ten times that. At DVD quality, 2GB for half hour.

 

[Chu]

Originally posted by: Pauli

Originally posted by: blodhi74
All of the above .... does eat up a lot of space ..... a half hour show can take 20 to 30mb

Uhh, with halfway decent picture quality, you're looking easily at least ten times that. At DVD quality, 2GB for half hour.

You do realize that's a higher bitrate then your average dvd?

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: Chu

Originally posted by: Pauli

Originally posted by: blodhi74
All of the above .... does eat up a lot of space ..... a half hour show can take 20 to 30mb

Uhh, with halfway decent picture quality, you're looking easily at least ten times that. At DVD quality, 2GB for half hour.

You do realize that's a higher bitrate then your average dvd?

Commercial DVDs fit about 2 hours or so on 9.4GB double-sided disks. That comes out to about 2GB per half hour. What am I missing?

 

[mrwxyz]

Originally posted by: Pauli

Originally posted by: Chu

Originally posted by: Pauli

Originally posted by: blodhi74
All of the above .... does eat up a lot of space ..... a half hour show can take 20 to 30mb

Uhh, with halfway decent picture quality, you're looking easily at least ten times that. At DVD quality, 2GB for half hour.

You do realize that's a higher bitrate then your average dvd?

Commercial DVDs fit about 2 hours or so on 9.4GB double-sided disks. That comes out to about 2GB per half hour. What am I missing?

dont forget your can compress the video files to divx to make them about 600mb per half hour. the only problem is it takes time and effort.

 

[cronos]

personally, i would go to SVCD instead of DIVX, you get more flexibility in watching it.

my wintv pvr-250 is setup recording at SVCD standard quality (1.2 GB / hour), and the quality is excellent

for most tv shows, after cutting out the commercials, one hour show fits into one 700 MB CD-R as an SVCD that's playable in most DVD players.

 

[cronos]

Originally posted by: ^Sniper^
What all can be done with one of these? Do they act as a Tivo kinda(set it to record shows at certain times)? Or can you just watch cable on it? What all can be done with one and which is good? BTW how big HDD is needed to really be able to record shows that you don't want to miss?

just realize that i didn't address the original questions:

1. yes, you are going to be able to do 'TIVO like' functions.
2. yes, you can watch live TV off of it.
3. refer to my post above, ~1.2 GB/hr, compressed as SVCD (MPEG2)

my suggestions:
a. if you are recording tv exclusively, use the ones with 'MPEG2 hardware encoding'
b. if you are watching tv exclusively, use the regular streaming tv tuner (without MPEG2 encoding)
c. if you want to record and watch both, use tuners with 'MPEG2 hardware encoding and decoding'

example products for suggestion:
a. Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250
b. Hauppauge WinTV GO or WinTV Radio
c. Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350

 

[ForceCalibur]

I'm thinking about Win TV 350 as well. Does anyone know if you can watch cable on it? How does that work? My dorm has cable access, but don't know if its restricted to TVs only.

 

[cronos]

Originally posted by: ForceCalibur
I'm thinking about Win TV 350 as well. Does anyone know if you can watch cable on it?

like i said, yes you can watch live tv with it

How does that work? My dorm has cable access, but don't know if its restricted to TVs only.

what do you mean by 'restricted to TVs only'?
all you need to do is split the cable coming out of the wall, one goes to the tv and the other one goes to the tuner in your computer.