Basic ?s about TV tuner card

Question

I have a dimension 8400 with windows xp mce, an ATI X300 video card, 160 gb hd, 512 mb ram, and a 17in lcd.

I'm considering getting a tv tuner. I want to hook it up to my basic cable and be able to record some shows. I don't have a dvr and I have a free cable connection right next to my pc.

I'm thinking about either the ATI wonder 600/650 or Hauppauge wintv-hvr-1800. I'm also open to other possibilities.

I did some research but I'm not a computer wiz.

Here are some ?s:

1) Do I need to remove my old video card to install the tv tuner?

2) If yes to 1, will my computers video crunching capacity decrease with the tuner as opposed to the old video card?

3) Do TV tuner cards actually produce good quality picures?

4) Will I need to make additional system upgrades for the tuner to work well? I already plan to add 2 gb of ram.

5) Are tv tuner cards worth getting? They don't seem to be popular anymore.

Thanks.

ty_ger · Answer

I can only comment on a couple of your questions because I am not enlightened.

You do not need to remove your video card; in fact you'll have to leave it in. The tuner card only works in conjuction with your system and video card.

The other questions I can only relate to my experience with a 3dfx tuner card (wow that was quite long ago, huh) -- but things may have changed.

With my 3dfx tuner card, the picture wasn't all that great. Also, it had a built in AM/FM reciever which only picked up a signal when it wanted to. Switching from one channel to another took about a second which made channel surfing quite difficult.

Things probably are better now though. I think the problem with the 3dfx card was the fact that it was running on a PCI bus as well as my video card and sound card which certainly had to be putting a pretty large drain on the PCI bus' low bandwidth capabilities.

These days, with the PCI-E capabilities, I would expect that tv tuner cards are much better. Just make sure you get a PCI-E x1 tuner card.

RubusRoo · Answer

3) If you intend on using it to watch Digital Terrestrial TV, then yes, the picture will be perfect. You either get a picture, or you don't with digital. Some Digital channels are more compressed than others however - mostly the +1 & shopping channels.

4) If you want to do other things while watching/recording/playing back recordings, then I'd upgrade - especially storage.

5) Yes. My PC is virtually a media center now & coupled with Windows Media Center, a 750GB hard disk & a 42" LCD tv, it's the best £1800 I've ever spent :)

tour8 · Answer

I have 1 more ? and this could be the dealbreaker.

The cards I'm looking at have dual tuners: 1 for over the air HDTV and 1 for analog cable.

So if I plug in my basic cable wire into the card it will work and I can get my basic cable channels. But what happens in 2009 when the signals are changed to digital? Will I still be able use my basic cable connection? I sent the card makers an email but haven't got a reply.

coolsystems · Answer

the digital thing in 2009 won't affect the cable companies.they will still broadcast their basic signal in analog.

XPS 420
Intel Viiv Quad Core Processor Q6600 (2.4GHz,1066FSB, 8MB cache)
4096MB (4x1024) 800MHz DDR2
640 GB (2x320GB) Serial ATA (7200 Rpm) Dual HDD Config. Raid 0 Stripe
Media Card Reader 13-in-1 Internal
DVD+/-RW (read/write) 16x max
128MB ATI Radeon 2600HD PRO
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital
Happague WinTV-HVR-1250 TV Tuner

DELL XCELERATOR video device
Windows Vista Home Premium w/Digital cable support
Maxtor 160GB EXT USB HDD

Message Edited by coolsystems on 04-10-2008 05:40 PM

Message Edited by coolsystems on 04-10-2008 05:43 PM

tour8 · Answer

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask question but here it is.

I decided to get the Hauppague 1800 TV card, it's PCI X1. I also decided to install a new video card which is PCI x16. The video card supposedly takes up 2 PCI slots b/c it has a fan on top.

Will I be able to fit them both?

Thanks everyone for your help.

coolsystems · Answer

My system came with a PCI Express X16 ATI 2400HD PRO video card.The next spot underneath it is a PCI Express X1 slot which contains my Happauge 1250 TV card.There is a regular PCI spot above the video card,but it looks like a card could fit if I wanted to add one there,but it would only have about 1/8" space between the card & the video fan.So I guess it depends on what video card you get,but on my system the ATI card doesn't block any expansion slots.

DELL XPS 420
Intel Viiv Quad Core Processor Q6600 (2.4GHz,1066FSB, 8MB cache)
4GB (4x1024) 800MHz DDR2 RAM
640 GB (2x320GB) Serial ATA (7200 Rpm) Dual HDD Config. Raid 0
Media Card Reader 13-in-1 Internal
DVD+/-RW (read/write) 16x max
128MB ATI Radeon 2400HD PRO
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital
DELL XCELERATOR video device
Happague WinTV-HVR-1250 TV Tuner
Windows Vista Home Premium w/Digital cable support
Maxtor 160GB EXT USB HDD

ty_ger · Answer

@tour8 wrote:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask question but here it is.

I decided to get the Hauppague 1800 TV card, it's PCI X1. I also decided to install a new video card which is PCI x16. The video card supposedly takes up 2 PCI slots b/c it has a fan on top.

Will I be able to fit them both?

Thanks everyone for your help.

If you look at the diagram for your system ( http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8400/SM/techov.htm#wp1052739), you will see that it has a PCI-Ex16 slot at the top, then 3 PCI, then a PCI-Ex1 slot at the bottom. This means that your video card and tuner will fit together just fine; but the video card will cover up one of your regular PCI slots if it does indeed fill two slots. This will leave your system with effectively two regular PCI slots available when just the video card and tuner card are installed.

Message Edited by ty_ger on 04-11-2008 10:30 AM

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Basic ?s about TV tuner card

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