TV Tuner cards anyone?

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 8:59 am

Wow, 3 replies in a row

. Anyways, i just discovered that the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV only had a clockrate of 230MHz

hame !!! There is no way I'm "down grading" so it appears i must get the TV Tuner seperate. Although I never liked my ATI Radeon 7200 64MB, I realized that the multimedia center software it had was awesome and i also hear about the ATI TV Tuners the most often so i am leaning towards getting an ATI. Is there a performence difference between models? I am running Windows XP Pro SP1 and i need something solid. I'm not a fool, i can get things working that "aren't compatible" but i don't feel like buying something that doesn't work. Can someone tell me what the best, average, and worst ATI models are and how much $ they will set me back? (or just what you have and how well it works

) Thanks!

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 9:05 am

I feel stupid, i am now posting 4 times in a row. I also just remembered another concern i had. I have digital cable on 2 receivers (and one will soon be a HDTV receiver) and i'm going to hook up a splitter before the non-HDTV receiver, having one end to to the box (a few rooms away) and one end go to my computer. We already have the cable modem going through the walls, so it shouldn't be a problem getting this through, but i had a concern about reception. I have heard the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon cards have reception problems, and are (were?) in more of a beta test mode. Is this true with the TV Tuner PCI cards? I have also heard talk of needed and amplifier. Do i need one, and how much $ is it?

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 9:17 am

I think i'll go for another record here...

Anyways... i have about 45 feet of coax sitting here with no connectors on it (took them off so i could enjoy picture in picture w/ a splitter). I figured it was worth saving it and tryign to use it for this (although i need 60 feet, i'd need and extention) but then i found this:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?c ... =15%2D1549

Is that the stuff i need? I am not really a techie when it comes to this type of stuff, i know the basics... This is 100feet, way more than i need. Is this something that i would lose reception the longer the cable is? (hoping it's not)

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 9:51 am

That would work, but yes the longer the cable the weaker the signal and it's a waste to use 100' if you only need 60.

Go to a mom & pop TV repair shop and ask them to make up a custom cable for you.

blade · Post by **blade** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 10:07 am

ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700(PRO?) is like $450 (sounds nice, but not going to happen

I hear that.

I'm not at all familiar with the ATI all in wonder cards. I don't know if they are stereo and have all the goodies that a pci tuner card has or not. Maybe some who has one will post. Aside from that I like your idea of getting a 9500, turn it into a 9700 then get a pci tuner.

Avoid usb if you want the best picture quality. PCI tuners give better picture. If I was getting a tuner card now I'd get the Asus one I linked to in my second post. It has the newer 880 chip and gives even better picture than the 878, which I have. Includes powervcr which is the best recording software I have tried. Plus it's stereo and has a remote, as that leadtek one. And you will want stero sound.

Amplifier? You mean for sound or for the signal. A tuner card connects to the sound card but if you're thinking of an amplifier to enhance the signal, that might work. Interesting idea. Wal Mart carries those for around 20. Otherwise I haven't seen any reception problems with either of mine.

Powervcr btw does all one needs. It can replace the included tv software and does it very well. You can resize the window anyway you want, make it always on top, any adjustments, channel changing etc.. Not to mention recording, file converting, etc.. Plus one very cool thing is you get access to an online tv guide. You can time record any tv program simply by clicking on a "record" button beside that program. Not THAT is cool. It's intergrated with the powervcr software. And you get that nice online tv guide.

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 11:10 am

these cards work with cable and regular tv antenna or do you have to get special one.

blade · Post by **blade** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 11:27 am

Either will work. They work just about like how either would connect to a tv or vcr, with these a cable connects to the tv tuner card.. You select either antenna or cable in the software then click on auto tune to tune in all the channels. You can do it manually too. It's all very easy and no special cables are needed since a tv tuner card comes with all you need.

Here's a screenshot of the powervcr software. Other software looks similar:

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 12:00 pm

sweet, i might pick me one up, one of them asus card then.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 12:24 pm

You can also get a digital cable box to work, or at least the one I have can work. What I did on my mom's computer was used RCAs to connect from digital box and put the video into the input and use a L/R RCA to 3/8" stereo plug into the sound card input.....all channel changing was done through the digital cable box.

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 1:30 pm

Thanks for your help... I'll take your advice on that ASUS one. Making a 60' cable isn't hard, i've spliced coax before and put on connectors so i can probably do that myself.

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:33 am

is there any other devices you can hook up to tv tuner card???? ex console systems etc???

MegaVectra · Post by **MegaVectra** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:39 am

Yes most has SVHS, composite, and coax inputs.

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 7:19 pm

Well, i ordered an ATI TV Tuner VE... just because i'm a cheap son of a *****.

Anyways... i didn't want to spend $90 on something like this, hopefully that won't come back to bite me in the ass. I payed like $45 for it. If it works, then fine. If it doesn't, i'll be pissed but not surprized. I ended up slicing my cable internet coax cable with a splitter and will branch one part out to this. This way i don't have to mess around with new wiring and i know because it'll only be like 6-8 feet longer than the other, there is a good chance of it working.

Although the ATI drivers suck, I really liked their multimedia center. It is very annoyong, like all toolbars, but that file player was easy to use and played any format i found. My expectations are high for the software. As long as i can record to .avi files i'm fine... if worse comes to worse, i can always just convert file types, though this card is supposed to support pretty much all of the formats.

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:10 pm

Cause my tv is messed up and i dont feel like buying another, so hooking up my game cube would work, theoretically or for sure??

fearfox · Post by **fearfox** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:36 pm

i ordered me the asus one i will update everyone with details of it, hopefully it will be able to play with gamecube,