TV tuner cards

[jeffc]

Looking at one of the TV Wonder cards. They advertise 125 channels. I have
cable TV with over 150 channels. Will I be able to get, for example,
channel 144? Wondering if that means up to 125 channels, any 125 you wish,
or you just can't tune higher than 125 period. Or is it a moot point if you
have a cable box? If you need a cable box to tune certain channels, does
that make the channel guide in the ATI software useless? thanks for any
info

 

[T Shadow]

Looking at one of the TV Wonder cards. They advertise 125 channels. I have
cable TV with over 150 channels. Will I be able to get, for example,
channel 144? Wondering if that means up to 125 channels, any 125 you wish,
or you just can't tune higher than 125 period. Or is it a moot point if you
have a cable box? If you need a cable box to tune certain channels, does
that make the channel guide in the ATI software useless? thanks for any
info

ATI's tune the original 125 cable channels. Anything above that can't be
tuned and will probably be scrambled anyway. You will not be able to get
channel 144 without the box.
I have been using the guide from my cable box since Guide+ wants to change
the channel from 3 but the info is there.
You can use a splitter and run the cable directly into the RF for tuner use
and into the box and then to the card through the S-Video/composite and
audio jacks. Then you can use it either way by changing the input in MMC.
Guide+ would work from the tuner but be a pain through the box.

One additional note. If your box(Warner Cable) is like mine the sound on the
RF(co-ax) output is mono. You have to use the audio out on the box to get
stereo/surround sound. I guess that point is moot if the TV Wonder doesn't
support stereo. I don't know if all do now but some of the older TV Wonders
didn't.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

Looking at one of the TV Wonder cards. They advertise 125 channels. I have
cable TV with over 150 channels. Will I be able to get, for example,
channel 144? Wondering if that means up to 125 channels, any 125 you wish,
or you just can't tune higher than 125 period. Or is it a moot point if you
have a cable box? If you need a cable box to tune certain channels, does
that make the channel guide in the ATI software useless? thanks for any
info

The '125' channels are ANALOG cable channels. In reality, I don't
think any system ever went much beyond 80. On today's increasingly
digital systems, channels below 100 are analog. Any channel over 100 is
digital, and require a DIGITAL QAM tuner. Further, most will be
encrypted, with only a few very basic ones being unencrypted. Encryption
would require a CableCard, which I don't think any computer video card
has, yet.

 

[Paul Murphy]

One additional note. If your box(Warner Cable) is like mine the sound on
the
RF(co-ax) output is mono. You have to use the audio out on the box to get
stereo/surround sound. I guess that point is moot if the TV Wonder doesn't
support stereo. I don't know if all do now but some of the older TV
Wonders
didn't.

The TV Wonder PCI had support for stereo but the newer TV Wonder VE was mono
only. The even newer TV Wonder Pro and TV Wonder Elite are both stereo
capable.

Paul