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Choosing a TV tuner card for your computer

Bit of a long post here for testing purposes - a thoroughly informative article I wrote for PC Mech a few months’ ago. Check it out in its original form here:

Those media centre Computers in the electronics stores look nice don’t they? Sure, demonstrations of Microsoft’s new ‘Surface PC’ might be wowing us on You Tube, but, let’s face it, the capabilities of even the most basic modern computers in the home are still sorely under-utilised. The fact of the matter is that by adding a TV Tuner card to your existing PC, you’d be instantly matching the abilities of these media PCs – and with a little effort and the right software, the ‘wow’ factor too – without the need to replace or buy another computer.

The possibilities, whilst not quite being endless, are many. Watch Live TV, in a window, full screen, or on a second monitor. Pause Live TV and skip commercials. Record your favourite programs at high quality, and store them on your hard drive or archive them to DVD. Watch and play back recordings on a large screen television, or even a projector. Not bad for a component readily available for under $100 / £60.

Refreshingly, and perhaps unusually, the majority of computers built or bought in the past 3 years on average will take a TV Card upgrade. Open up that case and locate an unused PCI slot – they look like these white slots. If you have one, you can add a PCI TV Tuner card, by far the best type. For the few systems out there without this, USB tuners are available. More on both of these options to follow.

And now to a small, but hopefully not off-putting, caveat. It may be easy to install a TV card into your system, but there’s a LOT of choice out there. That’s where this guide comes in, but it is important to keep in mind that the type of TV signal you receive depends very much on where in the world you are. In the United States, for instance, cable TV is common, but here in the UK and Europe, Analogue Terrestrial and Digital ‘DVB-T’ signals are the most common; both via exterior antennas. It is VITALLY important to know what type of TV signal you receive before you purchase a tuner card.

For the United States and Canada, a card that supports analogue cable is the obvious choice. When choosing one of these cards, it is vitally important to purchase one with a hardware MPEG-2 encoder. This performs the conversion of the analogue stream the card receives into a digital file for playback – either as a recording, or for watching live TV – and as such, takes a significant load from your system’s processor. If you plan on using your computer for other tasks while you watch or record TV, you’ll be thankful for this feature.

But what about future-proofing? Analogue television isn’t going to be around forever, and that’s where my top recommendation comes in – the Hauppauge line of Hybrid tuner cards. These cards each offer two tuners – both traditional analogue cable, and the newer ATSC digital, allowing not only for future-proofed hardware, but also the option to watch one channel while another is recorded. Whilst digital reception negates the need for any trans-coding from analogue, a hardware MPEG-2 encoder is still a must for the analogue tuner. Laptop users will be equally pleased to know that Hauppauge produces USB versions of both hybrid and regular tuners.

Hybrid tuners are available for European markets too, but for countries in which digital TV is quickly becoming standard, digital-only tuners often work out cheaper than the hybrid models. There’s no need for an MPEG-2 encoder, for instance, and as such it’s easy for manufacturers to install dual tuners on the cards without drastically increasing the cost. The ability to simultaneously record two channels with minimal strain on system resources (the digital stream is simply ‘saved’ to the hard disk) is certainly a positive feature, and that’s why I have one of these cards in my own system. The only disadvantage to these cards is that they lack inputs for recording from other analogue devices – such as satellite receivers and video cameras – that the analogue cards often do have. Consider both the features you need / want, and the price you’re willing to pay, before making a decision, as with anything in the hardware world, more features = more cost.

So, for viewing TV on your computer monitor, choosing the right tuner card really is all you have to do. There are, however, a few other hardware aspects to consider if you’re looking for the full PVR, entertainment experience. If getting the TV stream off your main computer screen is a priority, then you need to give some thought to your computer’s video card. The video output connectors it has is significantly more important than its performance here – some common ones are shown in this image, from left to right, VI/VO (S-Video), DVI and VGA. One option would be to connect two monitors to your computer – one to DVI, the other to VGA, and view the TV output on your second screen. Windows XP has full built-in support for dual screens.

A second option would be to hook up your existing TV as a second screen – S-video for analogue, or DVI for digital, and here’s where we really start to approach the functionality of a TIVO setup. Keep in mind that analogue TVs have very limited resolutions despite their size, most often no larger than 1024×768, and this makes them impractical for use as a true second monitor. Video displays just fine, however, due to its lower resolution. Get the best of both worlds with a digital TV, of course, and these are getting cheaper by the way. SOME digital TVs have a DVI input, most only ‘HDMI’ – as such, you would need a DVI to HDMI cable or adaptor, but these are readily available.

ATI video cards are generally preferred to nVidia’s offerings for this kind of use – for me, it makes little difference. A $50, or equivalent, video card would get you one with the right outputs – though make sure your system can accept such a card in advance. The knowledgeable folks that trawl the PC Mechanic Forums will be able to advise you on this.

And now a final quick word on software. All TV tuners will come with some sort of software that allows you to watch and record TV when you are at your computer, and most will ship with a remote control that allows you to control the software from the comfort of your sofa. If you’re looking for a true PVR experience, though – with a software front-end that is completely suited to remote operation – you’ll need to look further afield. A true ‘media-centre’ operating system is one solution, of course, but there are freeware alternatives. Take a look at both ‘GBPVR’ and ‘Mediaportal’, both of which really are feature-packed, despite the price-tag (or lack thereof!).

So, then, turning your computer from a web-surfer to a PVR is by no means beyond the realms of possibility. Sure, the idea of hooking up your PC to that shiny new 42” LCD is an enticing one, but if you’re a little more cautious in your aims, then please don’t let that put you off. If all you do is install a TV card, then you’re still making a very worthwhile upgrade. Just keep an eye on that hard-drive space when you catch the recording bug!