I'm looking at buying a new desktop. One of the options I have is for a TV tuner, and I don't know whether I want one or not. I don't have cable and I don't give a shit what's on broadcast, so right now I'm getting all my video entertainment from Netflix and YouTube and such. So a tuner wouldn't be immediately useful to me. Does it do anything else? Does it make video capture any easier, for instance, or is that handled through USB? I've got some old (personal) stuff on VHS I'd like to transfer. Thoughts?
I don't know how they work now. I had one a few years ago and can only tell you what I remember. They are nice if you have cable. Or at least they were when I had mine. But that was before the digital switch thingy happened. I don't know if they make them now that can convert or something. If you do get one, one thing to look out for (assuming it's an internal card) is extra heat. The one I had got very hot for some reason. Maybe read a lot of reviews or something. You should be able to connect an old VCR to it (if you have one) and transfer tapes to your PC. There are other ways you can do that but a tuner is one of the more direct ways, I think. That's all I know. I don't have much experience with them. The one I had was worth it because it was fairly cheap and I had cable.
Many of the TV tuners have additional capability, such as video capture. Check into the specifications (and cost) of the TV tuner card in question; it's possible you can get the same/better card on the open market for less money, and install it yourself. I believe video capture is practically standard feature, since most of the tuners incorporate a software DVR function.
There are 3 types of tuners now. NTSC is the old style of over-the-air TV broadcasting. It is still useful if you have cable box which outputs to channel 3 or channel 4 so the VCR's and and old televisions can receive. ATSC is the digital over-the-air digital television format, implemented (by govt. mandate) several years ago in the USA. QAM is the "digital channels" from the cable company without needing to use a digital converter box from the cable company. The present-day tuners SHOULD have the capability to tune all 3 formats. But with worldwide broadcast TV differences and cheap Chinese products, it's critical to read the specifications before buying a TV tuner for your computer.
"You have sacrificed nothing and no one." 3689 Posts 8/10
Posted - Jul 31 2011 : 8:43PM
Comcast has made it impossible to record using your old tuners (VCR, DVD recorder, etc.) without using one of their boxes. They have the everything box (which permits ordering PPV, movies, etc.), as well as a simple tuner to rent. You can not buy them. They have been rolling this out over the past year or so, and not every area has received the "digital upgrade" yet. The whole thing is a pain-in-the-ass, and really sucks for people like me who purchased multiple DVD recorders, so that I could record as many as three programs at a time. Now I can't. Other cable companies are probably doing the same thing. Basically, what happens is that, you can now use your old digital tuners (most, but not all tuners) to tune the first 20 or so channels (i.e. the local must-carry stations). All the rest of the channels are now scrambled/blocked, and require one of the cable company's boxes to view them. I mention this, because, if your intent is to record TV programs, you will also need one of the cable company's boxes to feed your tuner card. And, even then, some programming will be copyright protected so that it can't be recorded. Of course, things like DVDs, VCR tapes, video cameras, etc. will still be able to be recorded. Just not cable TV programming without a set-top box.
I refuse to use cable for a bunch of reasons. I discontinued my satellite service because I didn't like the programming (the service was great). I live in an area where broadcast is impossible. So basically I have no TV. The only thing I'm interested in the tuner for would be piping in signal from the VCR so I can digitize my old tapes while they're still around.
Don't know if you're aware but it matters what kind of VCR you use to do this with. Any VCR will work but some VCRs put out a much better looking picture than others. So if you're planning on digitizing your VHS collection, you might want to go around asking as many people as you can what's the best quality VCR you can still get your hands on. By that I mean people who are likely to know. People in video forums and stuff. I used to have a Panasonic that had a pretty good picture. Unfortunately, I can't remember the model. It looked a lot like this one with exactly this remote (or so close to it I can't tell the difference)...
But there may well be much better VCRs out there. I just remember the picture on this one was better than many other VCRs I tried. Edited by - randomprecision on 8/1/2011 8:21:24 PM
