Q: TV tuner in a PC

red

hi, not sure if anyone can help but I'm looking at getting a new PC/laptop. Space is an issue (as in lack of) as is mony (lack of again!). I am aware that for the same price of a laptop it makes sense to get a PC but then thought about these new TV tuners in the PC...are they any good and how do they work? Are they to be used for short periods only? Does anyone have any information or advice?

Hintza

Ditto...what is the word on these TV cards?

alexj2002

If by TV Tuner you mean TV Tuner Card (i.e. a Card that lets you watch TV on your PC) then they can be quite good.

There are three main types

ATT (analogue terresrial televison) - Plugs into your Normal TV aerial and recieves (depending on signal/coverage area) BBC1,BBC2,ITV1,CH4/S4C and five. Will become obsolete when Analogue's switched of around 2010.

DTT (digital terresrial televison) - Plugs into your Normal TV aerial and recieves (depending on signal/coverage area) the Freeview channels including BBC1,BBC2,ITV1,CH4/S4C and five as well as ITV2, BBC3, The Hits, TMF, Sky News, Sky Sports News,ABC1,ITV3, BBC4.

DST (digital satellite television) - Plugs into a satellite dish (usually mounted on a wall outside) and allows you to view all the FTA channels including all 8 BBC Channels, MotorsTV,Sky News, CNN, Chartshow.tv,S4C and ITV3 (but NOT ITV1,2 CH4 or five)

Depending on which card you get you can view tv in a windows whilst doing something else/view it full screen, get text information etc.

Joe_Bloggs

You can get two types of TV tuner device, analogue or
digital. Analogue refers to analogue terrestrial, BBC1,2,ITV,C4 and Five. Some analogue cards have inputs for a video signal from a VCR,DVD or Set top box. Audio inputs to a sound card are required to allow recording with sound.

There is a lot of information in analogue TV, recording it unprocessed takes up a lot of hard disk space, approx 28Gb an hour. Some software can attempt to process the video into an Mpeg2 DVD type format (2Gb an hour). This requires a lot of processor power to do a good job. This would be termed software Mpeg2 encoding of an analogue video source.

You can get analogue TV tuner cards with a processor
dedicated to convert analogue video to a DVD suitable
format. These cards are often labled PVR cards. They take
the load off the main processor and free up the PC for
other duties.

Now for the digital TV tuner cards. The material broadcast
is allready in MPEG2 format so it takes up less space to
record it and they can cram in 6 TV channels in the space
of one analogue channel, plus a few radio stations. You can receive digital transmissions over land via an aerial,
through a cable or from a satellite.

The computer interface of these tuners is often a PCI
'internal' card but external USB versions are available.
Often a USB2 connection speed is required to get good
recordings.

A modest bit of power is required to convert the Mpeg2 back into a video signal. A few cards have a built in processor to do this but most 'budget' cards do not, relying on software codecs.

You will need a good aerial and a suitable location with
repect to the transmitter to receive digital terrestrial. I don't have cable or satellite so I won't comment on the
situation other than to say the technology exists.

There are no time limits to using these cards. A TV License
is essential as is a quiet PC. Remote control is a common
option as is automatic unattended recording.
J_B.

Scan have a bunch of TV cards here.

hollie.weimeraner

If you decide to go with a digital card be careful as you will need to ensure that you are able to receive digital signals at your location. You can do a postcode check at http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/coverage.html but it does not guarantee the quality of the reception.

I have had an integrated digital TV for the last three years with good reception. I bought my son the Pinnacle Mediacentre 300i TV card for Christmas and the reception quality is pathetic. Pictures are blocky and intermittent, the software is very very slow and additionally the analogue side has no sound.

He has now reinstalled the Leadtek WinFast TV 2000 Expert which he has had for over 12 months and has been excellent.

alexj2002

You can get two types of TV tuner device, analogue or
digital.

There are really three types if you see my post. If you bought a digital card which turned out to be DigitalSatelliteTelevision then when it came to plugging in your aerial you'd have a problem.

Analogue Terrestrial -
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/prods_pcis.html

Digital Terrestrial - http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/prods_digital-t.html

Digital Satellite -
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/prods_digital-s.html

Joe_Bloggs

The pinnacle 300i is a DVB-T card. The T is for terrestrial. Other digital types are termed DVB-S for satellite and DVB-C for cable.
The inside of a PC can be a noisy environment in the electromagnetic sense. If your digital signal is weak and your PC is radiating interference then you are going to get trouble.
In this case a USB version might give you better results.
J_B.

blinky

You can get analogue TV tuner cards with a processor
dedicated to convert analogue video to a DVD suitable
format. These cards are often labled PVR cards. They take
the load off the main processor and free up the PC for
other duties.

Many of these cards don't have any decoder chip on, or one which is about as much good as a chocolate teapot.