Graphics I Need help in choosing a TV Tuner

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Ra1n3, 11 Jul 2005.

  1. Ra1n3

    Ra1n3 What's a Dremel?

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    I need help shoosing tv tuner.The range is up to 200$ if is worth the money.Maybe Pinnacle or something,but with quality picture,radio,MPG4,2 Encoding.Is it better with satelite connection or?
     
  2. star882

    star882 What's a Dremel?

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    ATi's HDTV Wonder?
     
  3. Ra1n3

    Ra1n3 What's a Dremel?

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    Can you post me link.i'll search it on google anyway.Is it good? :worried:
     
  4. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    Choose pinnacle if you like pain. The ATi HDTV wonder is over the air transmissions not for Satellite.
    There are sat cards but I know next to nothing about them but I do believe unless you have CAM you will not be able to get encrypted channels. You can get a normal card and feed the signal from your sat set top box and you should be able to get the premium channels if you already subscribe.
    If you want to make a pvr and are happy with Standard defination (SDTV) get yourself a hauppauge pvr 150 (single tuner) or pvr 500 (dual tuner) or the ATi pro 550. These are hardware cards so will only record in mpeg2. Also hardware cards are a poor choice for playing consoles on your pc.
     
  5. Ra1n3

    Ra1n3 What's a Dremel?

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    Ok then.Tell me the best-off tuner with mpeg2,4 encoding,dvd recording and so on in the 140$ range.
     
  6. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    Well specfiy what you want to do then and I will try to help.
     
  7. Ra1n3

    Ra1n3 What's a Dremel?

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    Watch and record in the same time TV with good quallity,MPEG2/4,radiostations,channel recording.
     
  8. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    To get all you want you will have to get a software encoder card but I would personally go for hardware encoder cards. If you decide to go software cards look at the leadtek expert range or the compro video mate range but be warned unless you have 2.4 ghz cpu you aren't going to record and watch full resolution in a codec like divx, mpeg without frame loss.
    If you can do without mpeg4 encoding look at the pvr 150 mce which has radio but no remote and does work with xp and 3rd party applications such as gbpvr or mediaportal.
     
  9. star882

    star882 What's a Dremel?

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    Actually, for MPEG, the data stream is already MPEG-2, so very little CPU power is necessary to save it. Transcoding to a different format or bitrate does use CPU, though. But you can always save it direct and transcode later. (Use cron to run a shell script that transcodes all files in a certain directory. Use nice with a positive value (try 5) to avoid slowing down other applications.)
     
  10. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    A normal analog card does not recieve a mpeg stream, a dvb-t/astc (HDTV) digital card will recieve mpeg2 stream so yes you are correct little processing power (unless its a HDTv resolution you still need a decent cpu i.e 2.0ghz with a decentish graphics card) but Ra1n3 wanted mpeg4 encoding and radio too. You are correct he can re-encode after but he never stated this is what he wanted, also this takes time and it means you need more hdd space until the re-encode is done and then you can delete the original recording. A good programme to achieve re-encodes is mencoder.
     
  11. Ra1n3

    Ra1n3 What's a Dremel?

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    I got FX-57 2,8 @ 3.00 Stable
    Maxtor Atlas 70gb 15,000RPM
    Give me the best tuner with MPEG2,4 ,radio (etc...) for 180$ or below.
     
  12. herbs

    herbs Nobody but us chickens

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    The software cards are the only ones that will do all you want, I have already given you two makes to look at. If you don't mind doing a re-encode to mpeg4 then the pvr150mce is your best option.
     
  13. MrAndersen

    MrAndersen What's a Dremel?

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    ATI HDTV Wonder for around 100-120.00

    If you just want to record regular Svideo buy a cheap Set Top DVD Recorder for like 100 bucks. It will save you a million headaches and it doubles as a VCR replacement. You can always take out the DVD and pop it into your PC and edit the video that way.

    Video capture cards can be a nightmare. Keep it simple.
     
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