Hey, I am new to posting in the forums but i like to read them. I recently have been looking in to TV Tuner and i would like to purchase one. I think the idea of recording TV on a computer is totally awesome. Now, i need your help in picking out the right tuner. Here are some ideas in my head. 1. I need to be able to record standard def Digital Cable. If i get a digital card, can i still record analog? 2.Right now i have a desktop for a pci card. when i get this card it will probably be December or soon and i only have two years of high school left so bringing this to college might be in my mind. Does USB 2.0 bottleneck the TV Tuner. I don't have firewire. 3.Is software like BeyondTV worth it? EDIT: 4. Can some take a signal from a VCR and make it digital. If not oh well, this idea just popped in to my head. Thanks!!
1. digital card records digital tv. analog card records analog tv. combo cards may exist (i'm not sure), but a standard digital card will not record analog tv 2. they make usb tuners, the bandwidth of a usb connection must be enough. 3. good software makes or breaks a tv tuner. i love my windows media center, never tried beyondTV, but it's probably worth it, especially if it can get the zap2it listings. where are you? if you're in canada, PM me about my dual-tuner pci card that i'm trying to sell (record two channels at once) 4. yes, absolutely.
1. Digital Cable only refers to the signal coming into the box. From the box to your TV it comes out in some analog form (composite or coax). Any analog TV tuner can take this signal and record (but to control the box, you'll need an IR blaster). 2. I used to have a Hauppauge USB 2.0 unit, which I only stopped using because I upgraded to a dual tuner card and the thing was very tempramental about getting recognized by Windows on startup. 3. I <3 BeyondTV. There are some drawbacks (bit of a resource hog, no PIP or video desktop, interface could stand to be better), but it'd take an awful lot for me to get rid of SmartSkip (a feature which auto detects and tags commercials on recorded programs so that they can be skipped with the touch of a button). BeyondTV has its own program listing service (also available online at www.snapstream.net, it requires an account because it's tied into your serial key, which allows you to schedule recordings remotely from the site without needing to connect to your computer, as BTV will poll for remote recordings). 4. That is in essence what TV tuners do. The incoming signal is analog, and in order for the computer to do anything with it, it needs to perform and A/D conversion on the incoming signal. From there it picks out the audio and video signals and routes them to whereever the hell they need to go (usually the HD). A few notes: 1. Under no circumstances should you pick up a standard definition TV tuner WITHOUT a hardware MPEG2 decoder. If you do, your CPU will have to do all of the encoding in (hopefully) real time while it takes care of the OS, apps, etc. With the encoder, your CPU is barely touched. Granted, I haven't messed with a software TV tuner in a long time, and my computer has gotten significantly better, but I'm pretty sure the experience would be just as aggrevating. 2. #1 does not apply for HD tuners because they don't need the encoder. Assuming you're talking about the US, HD signals are already in MPEG2 format, so it's just a matter of picking them out of the air and sending it down the line. Of course, the storage requirements increase greatly (I record SD at 640x480 at ~5MBps, which comes in at 2GB/hr, when I had an HD tuner to play with, a 720p show came in at 7GB/hr), so do keep that in mind. 3. Don't underestimate the power of a remote control. I use the Snapstream Firefly for two reasons: 1. it's RF, 2. I got it for free when I upgraded BTV. It's a nice remote, although I wish the software for it didn't include Beyond Media Basic, because I have no need for it. However, you can use it with Girder.
