What TV tuner card should I get?

[PowerHungry]

I am a college bound person with a good computer and I want to upgrade my system to support TV tuning (to go with my new monitor), basic VCR like funtions (recording), and maybe something that supports capture off something other than the TV in.

Should I go with a RR-G, G400 Marvel, G450 eTV, or some other card. I currently have a G400 Max, and I dont want to lose the current level of 3d performance I have with it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

------------------
P=I^2*R

[Dr Mordrid]

If you want to keep your G400 MAX I'd recommend getting the Hauppage WinTV model 495.

The WinTV 495's run ~130, are PCI cards that will coexist with your MAX and can be used with any number of soft codecs like PICVideo MJPeg, HuffYUV for video capture given a decent capture program (AVI_IO is my pick).

Its basic feature list includes Dolby ProLogic Surround sound, S-video & Composite inputs, 125 channel cable ready TV tuner, video capture etc.

Outputting captured/edited video to tape or TV can be done using your G400's DVDMax feature.

I would not recommend the Hauppage WinTV PVR MPEG device because it's drivers are still problematic in many regards.

Shopper.com came up with this list of sources;

http://shopper.cnet.com/shopping/resellers/0-7085-311-773957.html?tag=st.sh.sr.mp.pr 773957

Ignore the Amazon.com listing. It's a search engine error.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 20 June 2001).]

[AndrewDV]

Good call with the Theater card. That gives you plenty of options.

If you do not need the Dolby features, the next best card with full stereo support and Svideo is the WinTV-Radio. Under that is WinTV-Go cards.

THE most important item to look for on the card is the Conexant 878a Fusion chip. This is the latest iteration of the former Brooktree chips.

As far as VCR software, there are many choices. Intervideo's WinDVR has some impressve captures. Another one is ShowShifter www.showshifter.com. There are others like PowerVCR and WinVCR.

Also, I am seeing more iterations of the GeForce2 MX coming out with both video in and a TV tuner.

As a side note, the WinTVs can be paired with lots of cards. I am using a WinTV with a Marvel G400-TV. They play nice together in Win2K.

[PowerHungry]

Thank you for your replies, as this helps me trumendously.

------------------
P=I^2*R