Suggestion on good quality tv tuner

[Matt Doggie]

I bought the USB TV Tuner (ATI) a year ago, I was disappointed because the
quality was bad!!. Any recommendation on other TV Tuners? I want to use it
to replace my VCR. I don't mind watching the recorded show on my
computer... any suggestions?

 

[Ziggie]

Just see my post few messages above,
This AVer media TV 300, supposed to be good, has s-video input as well as
composite video, but I could not make it work on my machine, still do not
know what the problem is.

Ziggie

 

[kony]

I bought the USB TV Tuner (ATI) a year ago, I was disappointed because the
quality was bad!!. Any recommendation on other TV Tuners? I want to use it
to replace my VCR. I don't mind watching the recorded show on my
computer... any suggestions?

What exactly do you mean by "quality was bad"?
Many people observe more noise and scanlines in their capture cards,
because they're comparing it to a TV, which has more noise filtering
and such a poor picture tube (compared to a monitor) that it masks
many flaws.

If your tv signal is dirty (including cable), or split too many times,
dropping the strength, no capture card will look good. For the most
part, they all use VERY similar philips analog tuners, often paired
with conexant chipsets... quite similar no matter who makes it. If
someone suggests one is significantly better than another it's a
suspicious statement, could be more an issue of how well the coax
adapter was plugged into the tuner or other cableing issues as much as
anything else.

On the other hand, ATI cards are crap, but mostly because of the poor
software, not the hardware. Every year the software gets slightly
better, so I figure by the time the world has gone completely digital,
ATI will have another chance to screw it up again.

 

[Cyde Weys]

I bought the USB TV Tuner (ATI) a year ago, I was disappointed because the
quality was bad!!. Any recommendation on other TV Tuners? I want to use it
to replace my VCR. I don't mind watching the recorded show on my
computer... any suggestions?

I'm using a Leadtek TV tuner which is proving to be excellent. The
quality is good (better than on my TV screen, but the colors seem a bit
off and I don't know how to fix that). The included software is good,
though the FM program crashes a lot and the automated scheduling
features aren't nearly as intuitive as TiVo's. It comes with a remote
though, which is a big plus, and after fixing a few problems with
drivers it records TV programs nicely.

I still have one problem that I can't seem to solve no matter what. In
time shifting mode, I can't seem to get the audio to sync with the
video. No matter what picture I'm displaying (realtime, 1-min in the
past, or whatever), it's always either playing a sound from when I first
turned timeshifting on in a "loop mode" or just playing the sound that
is currently coming through the coaxial cable, no matter what video is
being displayed. I think it's a problem related to settings - it
doesn't seem to get along with my Audigy 2 card and there seems to be no
way to set it to record audio from the coaxial cable (instead, it
records audio currently coming out of the speakers, which is no problem
if I'm watching live, but if I'm watching with timeshifting, it'll
record current sounds to the video from minutes ago and just screw
everything up).

I don't use timeshifting that much though, so it's not a big problem,
and the thing also comes with a fully-featured remote!

I just wish I could get timeshifting to work, though. Anyone have any
ideas?

 

[kony]

I'm using a Leadtek TV tuner which is proving to be excellent. The
quality is good (better than on my TV screen, but the colors seem a bit
off and I don't know how to fix that).

There is a configuration screen with items such as Brightness,
contrast, HUE, saturation.

Alternatively, your video card driver may provide adjustments for it's
overlay.

The included software is good,
though the FM program crashes a lot and the automated scheduling
features aren't nearly as intuitive as TiVo's. It comes with a remote
though, which is a big plus, and after fixing a few problems with
drivers it records TV programs nicely.

Try a newer version of the application to combat the crashing,
ftp://203.66.138.20/tv_tuner/WinFast_PVR/application/040120/ALL_WinFastPVR_40120.exe
ftp://198.64.149.232/tv_tuner/TV2000XP/Driver/040113/ALL_DRV_878_40113.zip

I still have one problem that I can't seem to solve no matter what. In
time shifting mode, I can't seem to get the audio to sync with the
video. No matter what picture I'm displaying (realtime, 1-min in the
past, or whatever), it's always either playing a sound from when I first
turned timeshifting on in a "loop mode" or just playing the sound that
is currently coming through the coaxial cable, no matter what video is
being displayed. I think it's a problem related to settings - it
doesn't seem to get along with my Audigy 2 card and there seems to be no
way to set it to record audio from the coaxial cable (instead, it
records audio currently coming out of the speakers, which is no problem
if I'm watching live, but if I'm watching with timeshifting, it'll
record current sounds to the video from minutes ago and just screw
everything up).

I don't use timeshifting that much though, so it's not a big problem,
and the thing also comes with a fully-featured remote!

I just wish I could get timeshifting to work, though. Anyone have any
ideas?

Maybe different audio setting, for record source, or a different sound
card or sound driver.