TFT Monitors

[Steve Gill]

I am going to buy a new tft monitor. Is there any way that I can have my
television play on it as well as my pc. Cheers.

S.G.

 

[Chris]

Besides getting a TV tuner card in your computer, you can get a monitor with
TV inputs as well. Shop around and see what's available.

 

[Steve Gill]

Thanks how much will a tuner card cost me.

Besides getting a TV tuner card in your computer, you can get a monitor with
TV inputs as well. Shop around and see what's available.

 

[mcheu]

Thanks how much will a tuner card cost me.

About $50-70 Canadian or $45-60 USD for the ATI TV-Wonder or the
Zoltrix TV-Genie. These are the low end though, but quality is good
enough for most people. Of the two, the TV-Wonder is better quality,
but the Zoltrix comes with more stuff. The ATI one has better
support, and is more likely to be supported in the future. Zoltrix
has a habit of dropping support for stuff when the next big thing
comes along.

There are also more expensive TV-Cards, and the winTV tuners from
Hauppage are often recommended, but the prices tend to be considerably
higher. The question of whether the added features and image quality
are worth it depends on your needs and how picky you are with image
quality. As I said, most people find the image quality from the
cheaper cards to be adequate. There is, a noticeable difference if
you compare recordings made from the low and high end cards though.

Anyways, here's some homepage links. They provide only basic
information, if you want reviews, you may want to do a google search
on the product names:

www.ati.com (though finding the TV Wonder page is sometimes a
challenge with their new layout)

www.zoltrix.com (TV-Genie)

www.hauppauge.com (winTV)

 

[Phrederick]

About $50-70 Canadian or $45-60 USD for the ATI TV-Wonder or the
Zoltrix TV-Genie. These are the low end though, but quality is good
enough for most people. Of the two, the TV-Wonder is better quality,
but the Zoltrix comes with more stuff. The ATI one has better
support, and is more likely to be supported in the future. Zoltrix
has a habit of dropping support for stuff when the next big thing
comes along.

Avoid anything from ATI... Their software and support are awful.

Also, avoid anything USB unless you need a portable tuner. I've got a
Hauppage one here and, while it works, again the software is poor. Also,
being USB the quality of the picture isn't as good as it could be since it
has to use the USB bandwidth.

 

[Steve Gill]

thanks for the help guys. I have a radeon 9200 graphics card. Will this be
replaced by the tv card or will i run both.
Thanks

 

[John]

thanks for the help guys. I have a radeon 9200 graphics card. Will this be
replaced by the tv card or will i run both.
Thanks

Unless you get a ALl In Wonder type card with tv tuner + graphics card
- you wont be replacing the 9200 with the Tuner card.

You generally need both. The all in wonder cards tend to be pretty
expensive. I saw a price at a deal site which seemed abnormally low.
It was a ATI 8500 all in wonder for $58 . I tried to look it up but
couldnt find it so it may have been a mistake. Thats low.

Generally you have the well known firms - ATI, Hauppauge, Pinnacle,
Avermedia etc. They generally come with proprietary software /drivers
.. The ATI came with a lot of software that I installed for a
neighbor. Many people complain about various incompatibilities with
the software/drivers and limitations. Most of the cards come with
crippled software so that you have to buy extra software. With some
the PVR software (TV tuner and recording ) is OK but it has a really
crude editing package. Others have limited capture resolutions etc.

Then you have the taiwanese mass producers who use the same general
chips for TV tuners etc that everyone else is using - ASUS, MSI, etc
etc. A lot of people like these claiming they are very good and good
bargains. The ones Ive seen bundle third party software - often
limited a bit so you are encouraged to buy the full package. Ive only
seen these type of cards at website retailers . They might be at mom
and pop shops. I havent seen these type cards at the big chains.

You also have he repackagers like IO magic etc. They just buy the
cards and put them in their boxes. They also use third party software.
For instance an IO magic box had a Pinnacle based low end card , the
generic drivers for the chip set of the Tuner card that you can find
on the net and a limited version of the 3rd party software POWER VCR -
which frankly worked well .

In fact many people abandon the proprietary software and drivers on
Pinnacle cards and other cards and use the generic drivers and 3rd
party software - theres a lot of it , instead if its possible which is
generally is.

Ive got an older top of the line full featured pinnacle card. The
software really sucks and the drivers werent updated for a long time
to make them current. So I dumped both for the generic drivers and
Power VCR 3.0 which I use. The Pinnacle stuff that came with it
and that you can download is severely limited - it strangely has
anything higher than low res grayed out.

The mainthing you want is stereo sound. It generally starts around
$50 unless you can find a really good deal.

Some cards may not be compatible period with your ATI video card. The
Avermedia card I was looking at a while back which seems to be
discontinued - the makers had a warning on the site saying it didnt
work with ATIs.

 

[Skyfrog]

Avoid anything from ATI... Their software and support are awful.
That has not been true for a number of years now. They are actually
one of the best out there right now. I highly recommend the AIW
series.

 

[Noozer]

If it involves a TV tuner and ATI, RUN AWAY!!!

Video cards are marginally acceptable, the TV software/drivers just STINK!

 

[kony]

That has not been true for a number of years now. They are actually
one of the best out there right now. I highly recommend the AIW
series.

I'd certainly have to disagree about the drivers, they still don't
properly support the non-Radeons very well even though they're sold on
server boards (Rage Pro chipsets), and the AIW MMC software is still
very poor considering how long they've had to "finish" it.

Most manufacturers get "it" working right after a year or so, but ATI
took several years and still there are half a dozen systems here where
an error is generated if you do something as simple as (trying) to
uninstall the !@#$%^& driver. It's a sad joke, but at least the
Radeons have good performance.

The AIW is a bad choice for anyone with an empty PCI slot.. it offers
nothing extra, only negatives, at a price premium every single time
you want to upgrade the video card.


Dave

 

[Noozer]

I'd certainly have to disagree about the drivers, they still don't
properly support the non-Radeons very well even though they're sold on
server boards (Rage Pro chipsets), and the AIW MMC software is still
very poor considering how long they've had to "finish" it.

Should have clarfied a bit... ATI's TV software/drivers are awful.

Their video card stuff is much better, but I'm still hearing about stupid
errors in the latest drivers. I'm waiting on my 9600XT... should be fun.

 

[Noozer]

Should have clarfied a bit... ATI's TV software/drivers are awful.

Their video card stuff is much better, but I'm still hearing about stupid
errors in the latest drivers. I'm waiting on my 9600XT... should be fun.

*sigh*... Case in point.

I've been fighting with this card for over a week now. I gave up a few days
ago and have been waiting for ATI to reply to my last bunch of info that I
sent them. I just started the TV app and it's working fine... I didn't do
ANYTHING to the system in the last few days so I have no clue what happened.

....of course this was just one time... I don't know if it will die when I
close it or if it will work tomorrow. Only time will tell!