TV Tuners

[BradCowin]

Im looking to get a tv tuner to just simply record a few TV shows a week. I dont plan on using it to pause/rewind live TV.

Im mainly curious if I will be able to game and a record TV at the same time. I plan on using a high-end tuner if it matters.

My system:
Core 2 Duo 6400 - overclocked 20%
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 Dual channel
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe Mobo
Windows XP Pro on 74GB Raptor + 750gb additional storage
EVGA 7950GT 512MB

 

[Elstupido]

Yes you can game and record at the same time using WMC. I recommend the ATI 550 or 650 TV wonder. The 550 being low cost, around $50

 

[BradCowin]

Good to know...

I guess the next step is what card to use. Im looking for anything PCI or PCIe1x. Price doesnt really matter at all since I'll be splitting the cost with another person.

By 650 TV Wonder, you mean this right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16815129004

 

[Elstupido]

Yes, that is a good one! IIRC, that card can be had with either PCI, or PCI EX1. Be aware tho that the installation will not show the card in device manager for some strange reason

 

[mruffin75]

Also keep in mind if you have a cable or satellite based subscription, the TV tuners will not allow you to watch/record all the channels.

 

[Butterbean]

I use the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI version. I record while doing other things but I use ATI's software to do it because it makes basic AVI files that I can compress down in movie maker, Dvix etc. Windows Media center makes other files that are more of a headache to deal with. The PCI Express version of the card is new and it has ClearQAM which is suppossed to allow some sigital signals to be used without set top box. I havn't used it and ,in fact, have yet to pick up an over-the-air (OTA) hdtv signal



http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/index.html

 

[justlnluck]

I've owned the ATI 650 and the DVICO Fusion 5 Gold. The Fusion 5 beats the 650 hands down and then some.

 

[Gaurav Duggal]

I'd recommend the PVR 150 paired with Windows XP media centre edition 2005 since I currently own one and liked it. The PVR150 is about $80 (l.p. version). It is a PCI version.

 

[stuman74]

I have the Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE version currently in my WinXP MCE 2005 machine and I am hoping to be able to use that card with my new PC that has Vista Premium on it (due to receive the PC on Tuesday). Has anyone used one of these MCE version TV cards with Vista?

 

[QuixoticOne]

I'm just regurgitating what I've learned from others, I haven't implemented MCE yet myself.

However, this tuner comes HIGHLY commended by basically everyone I've seen mention it:
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun

To me it seems it has a GREAT advantage of not needing a PCI card at all, but rather it works over the ethernet.

Since you're a gamer I assume you may have some heat issues and limited slot space issues in your PC for sound cards, a tuner card, the GPU, etc. This will make all of those slot and PCI bandwidth complications irrelevant.

It also should take a bit less load on your system to pull the data from the ethernet (which is well designed for buffering lots of incoming data pretty automatically) than reading it off a PCI/PCIE card, which will be good when you're gaming.

Also this has TWO independent tuners so you could record two channels at once or whatever.

And if you had two PCs on your network one could watch either of the tuned channels or whatever while the other one was gaming / recording one or two of the channels as well.

It is for digital signals, however, so if you have reason to need an analog tuner, you'd still need to get one of those in addition or instead. Then again in a year they won't be broadcasting over the air in the USA in analog anymore, though you'll still get analog feeds from your VCR and analog video cameras and possibly some analog cable channels.

 

[Gaurav Duggal]

Hey stuman74


I used Windows Vista Upgrade advisor and it did not display any problems regarding my TV Tuner (I too have the PVR 150(low profile)).

 

[heyheybooboo]

HDTV PCI Tuner Card & USB HDTV Tuner Chart

+1 for the Fusion5 - you can get one at Digital Connection for $80.


Analog capture will be more cpu intensive than digital. I'm guessin' )) with your rig you are looking at less than 10% cpu utilization to record. I would set the processor affinity for the record program to cpu1 and record to your second hard drive.

Set your gaming program affinity to cpu0

- and though not exceptionally (recording and gaming) ram intensive another $50 for another 2gb may not be a bad idea ...