Lightweight TV tuner software?

[Tempest]

<small>(Thought for a minute if I should post it here or in Desktop Video, but decided for this one...)</small>

Anyway, the topic says it all. My new ATi A-I-W comes with ATi's MMC software, which is a bloated POS (it hogs 50 megs of memory just to let you watch TV...).
I own AVI_IO and it is great for grabbing, but not for casual desktop TV viewing. So my question is: Does anyone know of a lightweight desktop TV software? I really liked the Matrox PC-VCR (although it too could be considered a little bloated).

It would be nice if the proggy used the overlay and had an always-on-top option. TV recording & snapshots would be cool, but aren't a must. Does such a software exist, or do I have to try writing one of my own?

[isochar]

https://www.dscaler.org

[bsdgeek]

Yep, though I haven't used it personally, everyone who I know that's used dscaler usually ends up recommending it.

[az]

I don't know if dScaler will work. I fear it'll only work on bt8x8 cards, like most TV tuner software. I'd have said MoreTV (it doesn't get any more lightweight than this!), but I don't think it'll work with your AIW.

AZ

[bsdgeek]

Hmm, you may be right. Looking here it says that AIW is not supported.

[Tempest]

When I posted this thread I didn't know where to start looking... But now I've found http://www.tv-cards.com. There in the "3rd Party Applications" section one can find plenty of good software for just this purpose.

Anyway, I tested many of the TV viewers listed, and I can tell you that there really are some gems among those apps. ATV2000 is a polished product, and pretty much like the Matrox PC-VCR. Best of all, it's free! So is MyTV, which is designed pretty much along the lines of AVI_IO - small but powerful. Then there is TV Viewer, it is even smaller - 52 KB! It can be registered for a small fee of ~10 dollars. ChrisTV also seems to be a quality application. It comes in two flavors - a recent shareware version, and a somewhat older freeware version.

So, if you've got a TV card then I can warmly recommend trying out some of those apps. Many of them are superior to the flaky or bulky TV applications shipped with most cards.