TV Cards

Depends where you are going to use it. I have a USB Digital TV unit ($75 from office works). It works fine but needs a good aerial, it wont pull enough signal with a portable antenna. (I was going to use it to leave a small window on my screen showing the ashes, but I will have to convince my boss that my office needs a TV feed!)

The analogue ones are a little more tolerant.

That's my experience.

Pete

Hi Ray,
This topic was covered extensively recently as I was interested and got good info here. Try Thread 38868. I am getting the Avermedia mentioned there. The antenna is still undecided but varying experiences with different brands.
Steve

Hi Ray
I run a Pinnacle System PCTV Plugs into a USB 2 Connection on your Lap top,if you don"t have USB 2 only USB 1 you can buy a card to give you a USB 2 Connections.
Also have aerial booster which runs of my inverter. all works great,

Hi Darian,
THere are plenty on Ebay, just don't get confused with all the models.
I am going to get mine from a loacl computer shop so I can touch and feel it before I buy.
Site Link

Steve

Ive been using a DVICO card for 2 years and it has been faultless.Best decision I ever made.
Site Link

Recording works great also and it comes with a remote control.
I paid about $160 but Ive heard they have come down a little

Hi Ray

Where are you based ?

I can lend you one and you can make up your mind if you want one.

I have tested a few and settled on one that I find easy to tune and has all the features. Remote control, Auto tune, Movie editing, time shift, etc.

Regards

Derek.

My new you beaut Acer Aspire 5652WLMi laptop has built in TV tuner (not plug in to whichever port). It does analogue and digital TV. I knew that when I bought it. What surprised me was that it also does HDTV. If an internal card does that you can bet you can get an external card that does the same. For info. my laptop also uses what they call "Acer SignalUp High-efficiency antenna technology" which I guess means it picks up TV signals "better". In fact it has about the same capability as a dedicated normal TV (or just slightly worse). That says to me that some TV cards for computers probably pick up a lot worse than a dedicated TV & Acer reckon they have fixed that problem.
I bought the laptop from a Retravision store. It was not cheap.