Hi i'm thinking of buying a tuner card and would like to know if this one looks ok. and if anyone can suggest any others.
TY.
This is the new generation of Digital TV (DVB-T) PCI card that enhances the multimedia capability of your PC video entertainment. The good performance design gives you the ability to record any free to air Digital TV (DVB-T) program.
Please check the follow link for the completed information of this item.
Watch Digital and Analog TV in two windows on your PC at same time
Bring Digital TV to Media Center Edition 2005
Free to Air Digital Terrestrial DVB-T Receptions (6/7/8 Mhz)
Digital TV Recording and Playback as DVD Quality
Advanced Silicon Tuner for Worldwide Analog TV Receptions
Interactive Teletext and EPG Scheduler
Full Function Infrared Remote Control
PCI dual tuner system (DVB-T + Analog) TV card (Low-Profile PCI compatible)
Full band (6/7/8 Mhz) digital DVB-T protocol (ETS 300 744) compliant
High quality analog TV tuner for hyper band cable and terrestrial antenna reception
Fully resizable video window (up to Full screen)
Record and playback DVD-quality TV program on PC (720x480-NTSC, 720x576-PAL)
Supports EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and schedule recording
Stereo FM radio reception
Full function infrared remote control
Time-shifting playback, simultaneously watch and record the TV program with immediate replay and pause
TV system: PAL, NTSC & SECAM
TV Channel: VHF/UHF
System Requirements:
CPU: Pentium ? III/4, Celeron ? or AMD Athlon?, Duron? CPU
OS: Microsoft ? Windows ? XP SP1/2, or Windows ? XP Media Center Edition 2005
DirectX: Microsoft ? DirectX ? 9.0C
.Graphic Card : Director X ? 9.0C compatible Graphic card
Sound Card: AC97 compatible PCI sound card
Hard Disc: Up to 600MB hard-disk space for a full installation. Significantly more space may be required to record TV program.
System Memory: 256MB of RAM or more is recommended.
CD-R/W or DVD R/W: For installing driver and application
Package Includes:
I guess it would sort of Depend on were you Live...If you Live in Europe then there are quite a Few Free To Air Satalite and Digital TV Channels but in North America there aren"t so if you Live in the US or Canada and are getting it for the Free To Air Digital Channels then I wouldn"t go for it because you would really only have use for the Analogue TV Tuner....
Also with the Digital Tuner (The Card has 2 Tuners One Digital and One Analogue) it will Directly record the actual Mpeg-2 Transport Stream being Transmited from the Satalite/TV station so there is No Strain on your CPU and the Quality will be exactly the Same as what is Being Transmited (Accept for Maybe Dropped Frames which is a big problem with Free To Air Satalite/DVB-T Captures) ...
But Since the Card Doesn"t Have a Hardware encoder for the Analogue Video Your CPU has to do the Compression and depending on the Type of Video decoder the Card has the Quality will Be not as Good as if you were to use a Card with Hardware Compression Pluss there are More Chances of Dropped Frames and Sync problems.....
You will Notice that it says that only the Digital Captures are DVD quality...
If you Live in North America then I would Suggest that you Get a Card that Just has an analogue Tuner but with Hardware Compression and if you want to Capture Digital Cable or Satalite TV then get Satalite or Digital Hooked up to your House and then Output from the Cable/Satalite Reciever to the Capture Card and Record that way..
This way you at least get to record Regular TV at a Much Higher Quality without the problems of useing Software Compression and be able to get all the Satalite/Digital Channels You want because you will have your own Satalite/Digital cable Hooked up in your House....
Another thing is that as of June 2005 all Digital/Satalite/HDTV Providers have to have a RF flag (A Type of DRM Protection) inbeded in there Transmitions and this Flag will Prevent you From Recording TV shows/Movies and all Devices Ment to Playback or recieve Digital TV will have to have RF Detection Built in which will prevent you from Recording Much of the Content that you watch (These Flags can restrict what you can do with the Video, Some Movies will be Totally Unrecordable and some Might be recordable but will only be Played back a certain Number of Times, It all depends on the Content Providers and/or Owners)...
If you would Like More Information of RF(DRM) Flags in Digital/Satalite/HDTV Transmitions then check out this article:
Choosing a TV tuner for a MCE PC is a bit easier than just picking any TV tuner out there. The first requirement is that the tuner has official MCE support. You'll need a MCE driver for your tuner to work with the OS, so if one isn't available for the card that you're looking at, then you know to look elsewhere.
In other words it's not just any tuner card that will work with MCE !
Here's a few you can look at that are recommended for MCE
ATI TV Wonder Elite
Hauppauge's WinTV PVR-250
AVerMedia M150
