TV tuner/capture card

[jlreich]

I want to get a cheap TV tuner/capture card. I have been looking at some at Newegg, but I don't really know anything about this kind of card. :confused:

Here are some that I have looked at. What do you think would be the best deal of these? Or do you have another suggestion in the same price range?

Thanks in advance.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814127988
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814160022
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16815100129
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16815123001

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I am currently using this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Manufactory=1280&PropertyCodeValue=1485%3A10222&PropertyCodeValue=1486%3A10224&PropertyCodeValue=1487%3A10226&PropertyCodeValue=1484%3A10218&description=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=47&Submit=Property) at the top and I'm happy with it. The second one is similar in design to my first one and I needed to cu away some of my pc's frame to get the connector to clear the case as it was installed, so be careful of this problem and choose accordingly.

Other than that, read the reviews and pick one that has favorable comments. You will get a bit more quality as the price goes up and my LeadTek is not for professional applications by a long shot. It seems to do better with my camcorder rips than the shows I've recorded on MPBN (Austin City Limits). The tv capture is a bit fuzzy in full screen but not as noticeable if shrunk to 1/3rd that.

If you tend to want perfection get something better, but for anything under $50-60 bucks you could just use it as a learning tool and not be at much loss if you decide to upgrade later.

All in all, I like mine and still need to experiment a bit. There is a whole pile of different format qualities to capture at with the WinFast software and my latest were in dvd. Maybe mpeg-2 or uncompressed avi would be better.

[jlreich]

Thanks FTT. The one you have doesn't look bad at all. It has a 10 bit decoder, and the others have only 9. I don't know how much of a difference that will make, but it can't hurt. I will probably order that one tomorrow.

Thanks again.

[jlreich]

Hey FTT. I took me awhile to decide which one I was going to get, but ended up getting the Leadtek that you recommended. It was delivered a couple of days ago, and I like it. It seems to do everything I want it to. I see what you mean about the having to mod your case. It was tight getting the cable hooked up to it, but I was able get it on without cutting anything on my case. I have one of those cables that slip on, which are slimmer at the connection point, instead of the screw on type. I just backed out the screw a little so I could have a little slack and managed to get it on. If I would have used a cable that screwed on I would have had to cut out a place for it.

Thanks for the recommendation FTT. :)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Risk_reversal also has that LeadTek product in his signature and I was advised to get mine from this site a ~couple years ago but the first one went faulty and I am now on my second one.

It is a fun thing to have and I just talked to someone I hadn't seen in a long time who had made some of the same videos as I and asked if he was still capturing video. He mentioned that his pc was freezing when he tries to do any video work so not only am I going to do some tape to dvd work for him, I may have found a repair/upgrade job for myself too... ;) He said he has several tapes that need capturing.

I got his phone number, now we just need to coordinate and set aside the time to do the work as it is quite a lengthy process considering the steps involved.

[pop pop]

Guys,

I just orderd that Leadtek from Newegg. It'll be interesting. I won't be doing any video capture or editing--not now anyway--I just wwant to be able to watch TV on my LCD and get rid of my ancient CRT TV that takes up way too much space in my "office".

[Fruss Tray Ted]

That card works nice for watching tv or listening to radio. But on my pc anyway, while capturing video, the sound is not in sinc with the picture. Don't freak out and think something is wrong if it happens to you, because on playback, all is fine. Maybe my hardware is not quite up to snuff or I don't have something set up correctly, who knows. But you'd think an XP 2500+ Barton and 768 megs of pc-2700 could handle the task. I'm thinking my inferior agp card is to blame seeings though it is only a 64 meg 8x. :o

I'm realizing I already have 2 strikes against me because both, Apple and Pentiums are better for graphics work, but my video is ASUS with nVidia chipsets. Surely something has to be said in support of that! :( Heck, normally (another pc) I'm using 8 megs onboard vid to surf-and-view! :eek: :o

Anyway! It's only during capture. I can live with that for now...

[pop pop]

I guess I'll see and let you know. I'll be using it on this: P5AD2-E, P4 640, 6800GT PCIe-16 256MB, 2GB Corsair. Graphics power, and power in general won't be a problem. Me setting things up right probably will. :rolleyes:

Thanks.

[jlreich]

Several of the reviews on Newegg said the same thing about the audio being out of sync while recording. But hey for a $45 capture card it is not bad at all IMO. I am happy . :) I haven't tried to record anything yet though. But I'm sure it will be fine. One thing I like about it is you can resize the picture to anything you like. A lot of the other cheap cards had only full or half screen. And the bundled software looks like it's pretty good, and they are the full versions not OEM. ;)