TV cards

[frisky]

Can anyone link me to easy to understand sites about TV cards?

Even a good seller that specializes in these cards - so I could ask
questions...

Thanks

 

[Conor]

Can anyone link me to easy to understand sites about TV cards?

Even a good seller that specializes in these cards - so I could ask
questions...

Ask here, many of us have them.

 

[frisky]

Ask here, many of us have them.

What's the best card for XP?

I want to view my cable TV on my PC. My cable provider gives me a box. Will
the card take the place of the box for non HD cable?

Let's say I get HD cable - then the cable provider gives me a "special" box
(I pay then more for the extra HD channels)- so I'll get the regular cable
plus the extra HD....

Then over the air HD and analog TV, UHF...

Some cards say they are for HD (?) Is PCe necessary or PCI slot OK?

 

[Conor]

What's the best card for XP?

I want to view my cable TV on my PC. My cable provider gives me a box. Will
the card take the place of the box for non HD cable?

Let's say I get HD cable - then the cable provider gives me a "special" box
(I pay then more for the extra HD channels)- so I'll get the regular cable
plus the extra HD....

Then over the air HD and analog TV, UHF...

Some cards say they are for HD (?) Is PCe necessary or PCI slot OK?

Most cards are PCI anyway. Stick to known brands like Hauppauge.
Something like this:

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_hvr1600.html

or this:

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

 

[geoff]

For regular cable, you can route the feed to a box then from the box to your
tv card or go directly to the card.

However, for HD which comes with digital cable on T-W in my area, it is a
different story. T-W's HD boxes are Pioner and scientific atlanta. The
cable screws into the box and the output is either DVI or analog, which
consists of three cables, that go to the tv.

All the HD cards I have seen have a cable connector only meaning there is no
way to route digital cable through your box then to the tv card.

If you route HD cable to the card directly then you lose all the services
like pay per view, etc.

I wish there were a solution to it.

-g

 

[Frank McCoy]

What's the best card for XP?

Ain't no "best card".
There are some cards that are better for some uses; and others better
for others. You have to weigh price, performance, OS used, intended
main-use, programs that will be running, and several other variables to
determine which will be "best" for you.

Make a list of what you'll be using the computer mainly FOR; and then
what will be loaded on the computer; then what your budget is for said
computer (along with video-card and memory) and people here might give
you a list of several combinations of video, MPU, motherboard, and PSU
that will give you good bang for the buck.

A gaming computer (for example) would have *far* different requirements
than one like mine which is used mainly for reading and writing to
newsgroups along with writing stories on a word-processor.

Similarly, a person downloading and viewing online porn would have
greatly different requirements from somebody running a business or doing
work from home.

State your *needs* first (fast graphics, large storage, internet access
multi-processing; whatever's most important to *you*), then your wants,
and finally your budget to get all this stuff.

Somebody here is certain to have several suggestions that will likely
make you really happy.

As it is now, your question makes about as much sense as, "What's the
best ice-cream?" Um ... Is that: What brand? What flavor? What
ingredients? Home-made or commercial? Too bloody many variables are
unstated in the question.

 

[Frank McCoy]

For regular cable, you can route the feed to a box then from the box to your
tv card or go directly to the card.

However, for HD which comes with digital cable on T-W in my area, it is a
different story. T-W's HD boxes are Pioner and scientific atlanta. The
cable screws into the box and the output is either DVI or analog, which
consists of three cables, that go to the tv.

All the HD cards I have seen have a cable connector only meaning there is no
way to route digital cable through your box then to the tv card.

Generally, to have both, you need a display that also handles HDTV
output with one of those square-type HDTV connectors that you can buy
adaptors for to match the three-cable-kind.

(My LCD panel has both that and standard VGA type video inputs.)

However, the problem is: you can then watch either HDTV as mangled by
the cable-company's set-top box, TV as gotten off-the-air by a TV tuner
(or video-card) in your computer, along with the "normal" computer
display, but not both at once like you can with the video-tuner-card.

Right now (AFAICT) like you say, HDTV computer cards don't yet have HDTV
video inputs. *WHY* they don't yet, I can only speculate.

If you route HD cable to the card directly then you lose all the services
like pay per view, etc.

I wish there were a solution to it.

Well, you CAN watch HDTV from the Cable Company, *OR* monk around on
your computer with the same display. You just cannot watch both at
once. Watching everything else *besides* the HDTV content works fine.

 

[geoff]

You may be talking about hdmi, which I am not.

To do what you suggest, a cable splitter is needed, one going to the tv card
(or cable box if not digital tv) and the other going to the cable modem.

Coming out of the cable box would be dvi and dvi from the computer graphics
card. Some kind of dvi switch would be needed to go between the tv and
computer.

Another shortcoming of feeding digital cable directly into a tv card (which
is the only choice) is some cable systems encode certain channels, not
necessarily pay channels. Those channels could not be viewed.

-g