Thread: TV Tuner?

I am thinking about getting one, anyone a guru on these? Are they worth it?

Was browsing on newegg, these caught my eye


Does PCI-Express put me at a disadvantage? PCI vs usb tuners?

I have an old Hauppauge TV tuner. It only records basic cable and HD over the air... similar to the PCI card you have listed, but I am not sure the exact model of my card. I never got the HD over the air tuner to work as I never really put forth the effort as I just use my DVR box for HD.

I wouldn't consider myself a Guru, but it looks like the AverMedia cards should do what you want. For the best experience, you should use Windows Media Center... the recording and playback functions are actually pretty nifty, but you might be too much of an advanced geek for Media Center.

Also, stick with the PCI over USB.

Originally Posted by Bunni

I am thinking about getting one, anyone a guru on these? Are they worth it?

Was browsing on newegg, these caught my eye


Does PCI-Express put me at a disadvantage? PCI vs usb tuners?

PCIe is a more direct pipeline to memory and HDD. it allows the card to minimize on-board memory and should result in higher quality recording.

The avermedia one requires an analog tv tuner and you will need to purchase an mpeg2 decoder as well. Also, the whitebox edition doesn't come with the avermedia software and is made SPECIFICALLY for windows media center. I can't find anything that says it, but I'm betting the higher cpu requirements means that it's also a software encoder. If you can verify that it isn't then that's not an issue but definitely stay away from software encoders. They aren't nearly as well supported as hardware encoders.

I've had many hauppauge cards and would recommend them whole-heartedly. They are solid and last forever. They are also hardware encoders and as you can see, require less system requirements than some others.

PCI/PCI-X vs USB...

USB devices are fine as long as... you guessed it they are hardware encoders. Also if this is a dedicated machine (media center) then it's fine, but if you are using it for other stuff and have lots of other USB devices on the same bus (specifically external drives) utilizing the same bandwidth? You might have problems recording high def as the usb bandwidth starts having an bottleneck. I prefer to stick with the internals myself.

If you plan on using the cable box for tuning, you'll also need to pick up a IR blaster and receiver (if the card you choose doesn't come with one). None better than the USB-UIRT (www.usbuirt.com). I even had one die after about 3 years of use and the guy replaced it for free. Worth the money and of higher quality than what comes with most cards.