TV tuner cards

[Burzhui]

hey guys i was wondering i have digital cable at home,
but i don't have a tv in my room, no place to put it, so i was wondering which tv tuner card should i get that will support all the channels that i have. I checked out a couple of cards and it says they only support 125 channels... any ideas?

[mcs328]

Doesn't the viewsonic nextvision or whatever support up to 181 channels? You might want to check it out on their website.

[Burzhui]

i have like 999 channels, i would kind of like to have support for all of them

[bachviet]

Originally posted by Burzhui
i have like 999 channels, i would kind of like to have support for all of them
I thought you control the channel using the provided digital cable box not your TV or TV card. Usually pple just set it either on channel 3/4 or video and use the box. Satellite TV uses the same method.

[raimin]

Originally posted by bachviet

I thought you control the channel using the provided digital cable box not your TV or TV card. Usually pple just set it either on channel 3/4 or video and use the box. Satellite TV uses the same method.

to do that you will need to request another digital cable box from the cable company,

so you put either your tv tuner card, video in from the digital cable box to channel 3,4,svideo and you change the channel with the digital cable box

thats what i do with directv


with digital cable, you need the digital cable box to get the digital channels. wiothout it and using the cable jack, you will only get the analog channels

[cheapie]

or get one of these

http://www.gotapex.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60379&highlight=radio+shack

[CntMecha]

I would definately recommend getting a tuner card that does on board MPEG 2 encoding, such as the Hauppage WinTV 250 (I think thats what it is called, the 250 part I'm sure about).

[Apex]

The Asus has a Philips analog tuner. It has the CX chipset and the Philips analog tuner (1 generation back from the PlayTV PVR's Philips analog tuner). The MSI has the CX chipset and a Silicon digital tuner.

[Apex]

No, the MSI is not better. The CX chip it includes is mono only in NTSC, and the digital tuner is not as high quality as the Asus's analog one.

[Burzhui]

thanks guys

[Burzhui]

anyone know if the asus card has mpeg 2 encoding on board?

[Burzhui]

HAUPPAUGE WINTV-HD

doesn't this support digital cable?

[Apex]

The asus card does not. This is definitely an issue with low powered computers.

WinTV-HD is the absolute worst HDTV card you can buy. But no, it doesn't support digital cable. Only OTA.

[Burzhui]

how about the Asus TV FM tuner, that looks like a nifty lil card, for some reason there aren't too many stores that sell them though

[Apex]

Because it was recalled. They probably fixed it by now though. It's a good one, with the new Philips SA chipset. It won't decode digital cable though (you need your local cable's digital cable box for that). No card will decode digital cable.

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by Apex
Because it was recalled. They probably fixed it by now though. It's a good one, with the new Philips SA chipset. It won't decode digital cable though (you need your local cable's digital cable box for that). No card will decode digital cable. it's cool, i'll get the box, this card does seem pretty good, if i could only find it for a good price i'd be really happy

[Burzhui]

ok i think the asus card has been discontinued. ANy other card that you guys can recomend, that has mpeg 2 on board (preferably) and an FM tuner?

[Apex]

Only the hauppauge WinTV-PVR350 has an onboard mpeg2 decoder. My suggestion? Get rid of your Pentium 166 processor so you don't need the onboard decoder and can actually use a good card (at 1/3 the price).

[Burzhui]

pentium 166????? AMD t-bird at 1ghz still going strong baby!
so recomend a card man for 1/3 the price....

[revoh]

So the Asus Tv Tuner card was discontinued or just some special FM card?

[coleslaw]

All I know is that my Hauppauge WinTV-GO card sucks with WinXP. I can't get a clear picture and the audio is full of static. :mad:

[Apex]

Avoid Hauppauge if at all possible. The Asus TV/FM is a good choice, as is the Lifeview FlyVideo 3000/FM. Neither have hardware mpeg decoders built in though.

Burzhui: if you're not using a ghetto fabulous computer like a Pentium 166, why the heck do you want a hardware mpeg decoder? You using windows xp media edition, which requires it?

[dtt]

so do the hardware decoders fall in the suckage category, or are they just superfluous w/a decent machine?

[Apex]

Well, it's the fact that they're attached to sub-par hauppauge cards. But yeah, they are superfluous on good machines.

[Apex]

You got the Asus 880TV or the Asus TV/FM card?

[Apex]

It's possible to get the TV880 (what you have) audio working with dScaler. You have to use GraphEdit though. That's what I'm doing. Picture quality increase over the WinVCR software is pretty sizable.

[Burzhui]

ok fine fine, i'm sticking with asus... i just need to find the tv fm card for a good price :(

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by DarkFury

Hmmm... you'll probably be hard pressed to find it at all... :shrug:
so far you're right... but i need radio :(

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by DarkFury

can't you just go and buy a radio? :hihi:

but of course, except space is an issue, and i don't want to be listening to my imp-400 while i'm home

[Apex]

For those of you on the Asus TV880 and want to use dScaler 4.1.6. Here's how you get sound:

http://www.gotapex.com/images/apex/asustv880_graphedit.gif

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by DarkFury
um.... what's an imp-400? :shrug:

http://www.iriveramerica.com/images/prod/SlimX400_1.jpg