tv tuner card specifications?

Question

hi guys!
i need a little guidance here.

i have an hcl branded desktop computer 2.66 ghz intel processor with gigabyte(8I865GVMK-775)

motherboard with onboard intel graphics engine and on board sound.
i want to put a tv tuner card in my system, to see all the channels that comes in to my tv, in my

pc. i have a cable tv connection in my house.

But the problem is that i dont know a bit about these tv tuner cards and their technology. so need

a little guidance here because i want to sure that i should be able to see all cable tv channels

in my pc.

1) So i want to know what kind of things i need to check in a tv tuner card so that i can and must

see all my cable tv channels like what technical specifications or kind of signalling i need to

check that it supports,i dont know that cable tv signal is an analogue or digital?

2)Do i need to ask anything from my cable tv provider like any tech details etc. or i can simply

go to the market buy any latest card ,insert it in system,hook my cable tv wire and it will work?

3)As i little know about them ,should i go for external or internal tv card,which one is better?

4)plzzz suggest me some brands and their model nos. of cards to choose from which are cheap n best

ie value for money.

so brothers plzz educate me anything and everything that i need to check before buying the card to

make sure that it will let me see all my cable channels.

plzz educate me about this.
looking forward for response

punet

i am in india

Answer 1

If you're in the USA, any of the TV tuner cards sold here should work with your cable box. You just connect the round coaxial cable to your TV tuner card.

The signal is NTSC standard, so it's no different than picking a TV set that works. If you're in Europe or somewhere that uses the PAL standard, you need a card of that type. Some cards have capture & record capabilities so your computer can act as a DVR, others just let you watch TV.

While the external USB 2.0 versions of TV tuner cards do work fine, I'd recommend the internal PCI variety. Some computers only have old USB 1.1 ports, and the external cards really need USB 2.0.

There are however, both HD and regular versions of TV tuner cards. So far the HD cards haven't really impressed anyone- my guess is the amount of data in the HD broadcast is just too large for them to offer fancy features yet,.

Here's a CNET roundup that's a little dated, but still useful.

Answer 2

You can take a odyssey external TV tuner card which is costing 750 rs and you can watch all the TV channels without starting your CPU . No need of starting your computer. However, if you need capturing the TV channels you can opt for a internal TV tuner card (pinnacle brand) around 1500 rs and enjoy .