Tv Card

T

tomb08uk

New Member
Hi i am running my pc on Windows XP Media Centre and want to gte a TV card, just wondering if you guys know of any recommended ones, i have a gigabyte board and have a PCI-E supported motherbaord which is used for my graphics card so think have to be PCI. Also what format do they store the files as once recorded. Any suggestions makes/models for around the £40 mark or cheaper..?

Thanks
 
Don't expect to get too much for that price... Mine was around $40 USD and it's junk. I'm sure there are some cheap ones that are better, but usally not.

One thing to look for, if you want a tuner on it, make sure it actually has a tuner box.

http://tekgems.com/images/large/wo/ss/sbt-tvfm.jpg

See the big metal box on it. If it's a tuner without that, the quality is usally a good bit worse.

Do you wish to capture stuff? If so, you'd want an onboard compressor. You can, obvously, capture without that, but the file size gets very large very fast. Also, if you do try to use realtime software compression(as most of the cheaper cards boast) you use much of your computer's resources. This usally causes dropped frames and such. How to tell if the card has onboard compression? They usally have little RAM chips on them and a heatsink.

Um...sorry I can't be much more help... Maybe this little guide will be of some assistance.
 
I used to do a lot of video work. I don't do nearly as much anymore, but I'd dealt with all grades of capture cards...

That card would be nice. You could go without the MPEG compression if you really wanted to, but captureing's a pain. If I remember correctly, a hour of DV compressed video is about 8 gigs. Uncompressed video from a capture card like that would be larger... I don't know exactly how much, sorry. It's been a while since I delt with that type of card.

Now, the resolution also plays a bit factor. Standard TV resolution there is 720 x 576. Obviously, if you capture at lower resolutions, the file size will be smaller.
 
Unless I'm mistaken, that's the same card, just a better deal.

AVI and MPEG are just different formats of video. Capture cards tupically capture in AVI format, uncompressed. There are hundreds of different codes/compressors you can use to compress AVI's(I assume you've heard of dvix) MPEG is basically just another compressed form, except another file extention. It's what DVDs use... Um...yeah, I guess that's about it.
 
i got a sabrent from tigerdirect.com for 30 bucks and its fine at dvd resolution (720 x 480? ) but when u put it to full screen the quality isnt that great , but it records a mpeg1/2/4 and it supports timeshifting and it has a fm tuner , and it comes with a pretty go program and remote... its really good for 30 bucks;)
 
First off, if it's got mepg 1/2 and 4 compression options it'd most likely NOT realtime hardware compression. Nor does it really look like it has it onboard. I mean MY card claims all this too, but it doesn't do too well...

As for DVD resolution, 720x480 is NTSC, but he's Pal. Be sure the card you get supports at LEAST PAL or both PAL and NTSC(which most do...)
 
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