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Topic: tv tuner card question

dick-richardson
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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

tv tuner card question

Would it be better to get a tv tuner card that takes up a pci slot in my comptuer with 2mb vram and 192mb ram, or should I go for the slightly less expensive external USB one WRT to smoothness of playback and window size?

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12-06-2001 06:13 AM

ashmed
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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: San Diego, California
Posts: 441

My experience is that pci tv tuner cards tend to be smoother than usb. Playback can rely on its compatibility with your video card so if I were you i'd check around to see how well it works with your video card.

BTW I'm using an ATI TV Wonder. To my knowledge ATI makes the best TV Cards around.

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12-06-2001 06:25 AM

dick-richardson
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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:
Originally posted by ashmed
BTW I'm using an ATI TV Wonder. To my knowledge ATI makes the best TV Cards around.

I'm partial to the all-in-wonder's myself. Find one that works with a PI 200MMx and a pci slot and I'll be in seventh heaven.

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12-06-2001 02:48 PM

Soul Raven
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Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 239

Have you seen the AccessDTV?. It's not an All-In-Wonder, but it does do HDTV and it is PCI. AMDPower has a pretty good review on it, and on recording programs to your hard drive. Good stuff. I tell ya, the first $400 I get.....

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12-06-2001 03:24 PM

kalahari
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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: San Francisco, CA
Posts: 431

quote:
Originally posted by Soul Raven
Have you seen the AccessDTV?. It's not an All-In-Wonder, but it does do HDTV and it is PCI. AMDPower has a pretty good review on it, and on recording programs to your hard drive. Good stuff. I tell ya, the first $400 I get.....

Yes, it does look good but have you seen
1. how much it costs? $400 for the adapter and then another $10 per month.
2. that only some channels are HDTV now and a whole lot more are only going to be HDTV in 2003
3. that it takes 9GB of disk space to record 1 hour!!

The third point is what says that it won't work for me. I only (?) have 46GB of disk space in my PC. I can't add another hard drive.

Guess I'll have to stay with my old STB TV-PCI card which still manages to work in Win XP even though the only drivers available for it are "beta Win 2000" drivers.

12-06-2001 03:47 PM

Soul Raven
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Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 239

quote:
Originally posted by kalahari
1. how much it costs? $400 for the adapter and then another $10 per month.

I am sure that set-top boxes to view HDTV on your regular TV would cost about as much, and a HDTV-ready TV is about $2000+. Where does the $10/month come in?

quote:
Originally posted by kalahari
2. that only some channels are HDTV now and a whole lot more are only going to be HDTV in 2003

True, but this card also has a 129 channel analog cable tuner. You are not limited to watching only HDTV programs. D-R was just asking about alternatives to an All-In-Wonder, and was wishing for a PCI card

quote:
Originally posted by kalahari
3. that it takes 9GB of disk space to record 1 hour!!

Well, I don't think this could ever compete against a PVR like TiVo or ReplayTV4000 (320 hours! I'm not Hindu, but Holy Cow!). It wouldn't replace even a set-top box on a regular TV. Even a 21" screen is smaller than really cheap TVs. It would make a nice PC tuner card, though. I have Dish Network, and I could just run that into the back of this puppy and be in bid-ness.

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12-07-2001 02:55 PM

Toby
Member

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
I'm partial to the all-in-wonder's myself. Find one that works with a PI 200MMx and a pci slot and I'll be in seventh heaven.

I think you might be a few years late. My All-in-Wonder Pro is a PCI card and used to be in a computer with a P200MMX. Now it's in my AMD box.

12-07-2001 03:01 PM

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