Hi-

I have a cheapie Hauppage tv-tuner card. I can't remember the exact model of it now, but it works fine until...

You put it into full screen mode. It breaks up, and any movement has lines going through a portion of the screen. I will add pics later...

I'm looking for a good tuner card that will not break up when in full screen mode. It would be great to be able to watch TV on my pj in full screen.

I have looked for reviews of tuner cards online, but there are so many of them, it is very difficult to sort through them and find the best ones. I thought I would ask the community here.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks-

What kind of computer are you running it on? This could be why it is breaking up (if the computer is too slow).

yes system specs would be excellent to help aid in the suggestion..

Also what type of input would you primarily be feeding in to it? Coaxial RF, or composite / s-video form a set top box?

Most people on here use the hauppauge pvr-150, which works pretty well. Remember though, that even a digital cable signal is not a very high resolution, so blowing it up can really decrease the image quality, even with a tuner card that ramps the signal. Mine is approx 140", which is really too much, but the image from my dish network is watchable.

hey mantis - you watch your dish network thru the s-video????
how does it look compared to having a catv tuner directly in the computer and having IT tune your channels vs a STB like dish, or digital cable??????

Thanks for the replies...

I am running an AMD 800 mhz, 384 RAM, and an Nvidia 32 mb graphics card. I am feeding the Hauppage card with a Coax signal.

I think my problem may be the PC... I was thinking of grabbing a P4 1.80 ghz machine from work, and trying that.

I have Comcast digital cable, and there are some HD channels, but as I don't have a HDTV, I have not yet subscribed. I just have the regular digital package.

Does the Hauppage card upscale the resolution? I thought it took the regular signal and upscaled it to 1024x768. If that is the case, it could also be contributing to the lines.

Again, thanks for the response.

Hello. I have a Sapphire Theatrix card and it's wonderful. Great quality from the TV tuner, composite and S-Video connections.
The hauppauge cards are also excellent, but I needed to capture uncompressed video so I decided to buy the theatrix.

OK, so I am going to upgrade my PC at some point down the road... (that should fix my interlacing problem)

I was browsing through some TV-tuner stuff, and now I'm confused. I am looking at buying an ATI 9700 card to pair up with the ATI HDTV tuner. Link here:

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/specs.html

If you look at the bottom of the specs, it says:

"HDTV signal from antenna (included) required for HDTV function. Version included for:
ATSC (North America). Product does not receive satellite or cable HDTV transmissions"

Does this mean I'm S.O.L. for watching HDTV from my cable provider, or are they saying that it natively will not decode the transmission?

I am assuming that if I feed the ATI HDTV card an HDTV signal from my digital set top box, then I should be good. I am looking to watch football, etc. in HDTV on the pj. That's all I want to accomplish.

Any help is appreciated.

ATI's HDTV does not decode QAM signal which is the signal cable providers use for HDTV. They can do OTA (over the air) regual rabit ear signal your local TV broadcasters will offer if they dont already (gov. says they all have to soon, mandatory)
There is an HDTV card that offers the ability to do Cables QAM signal. Its the Fusion3 gold from Dvico. I have the one that came out before the one that does QAM so I cant tell you what its like. I can tell you that the one I have is fantastic at OTA. Digital Connection has them much cheaper now than when I first bought mine.
Hope this helps. Remember it has to be UNencrypted in other words its not a descrambler and they have to broadcast it already in HDTV

Thanks griff-

So if I understand correctly, if I get the Dvico card, and feed it an HDTV signal from my set top box, then I should be in good shape, correct?

The set top cable box will do the decoding from Comcast, and the Dvico card will do the processing onboard the pc to send the hdtv output to the graphics card.

Please correct me if I am mis-understanding, as I want to grab the card ASAP. Thanks-

The Dvico can decode digital cable QAM only if it is not encoded, each cable provider may or may not be encoded there is no way to tell without trying it.

thanks for all the input...

i have been doing some research, and was actually going to start another thread.

pagercam, you are exactly right. i won't be able to do anything with a HDTV tuner card unless the QAM signal is unencrypted. i will be able to grab OTA (Over the Air) signals, so i still may go with that option, as i want to watch football, nascar, etc. These are mostly on my local affiliate stations.

looks like we are out of luck, although some cable companies send unencrypted QAM signals. From what I understand, Adelphia cable is one company that does.

I am going to call Comcast tomorrow, and ask, but i was told by a rep for Dvico that Comcast is not a company that sends unencrypted signals.

There is a thread posted at AVS Forums regarding the Dvico Fusion 5 Gold card:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....=dvico+fusion+5

It looks like the Fusion card doesn't handle QAM signals very well anyways...

I'll keep everyone posted as i find out more.

Maybe we should start a pinned thread about HTDV Tuner Cards??

Ricocks,
Through the s-video is the only way I have done it so far, so I do not know what the comparison would be. Mu current picture is ok, but I my screen size is 140", which I thin k is a little too big, and I need to adjust the settings of my HTPC, so I don;t think I will be able to give a true response on the quality until all of that is done.

I gotta give two big thumbs down to the Hauppage PVR-150MCE. Yes it can be made to work, but straight out of the gate it's nothing but problems. The driver installation procedure is thoroughly flawed and I think that is being nice I'm running a P4 3ghz 1gb ram nvidia 6200 128mb ram and a chaintech 710 audio card. I think those are decent enough specs for an HTPC but this card makes it all look like *** it took nearly 2 hours just to get the right version of the driver to work with xp mce 2005 and then lo and behold no sound on some channels using Media Center so I tried it on BeyondTV same results next up SageTV still no sound on some channels, then the same results on GB-PVR and the overall picture quality from any of these apps is bleak at best. There is one crappy program that works called WinTV 2000 no integrated guide the remote doesn't work right with it but i get sound on every channel :angry: so it's hardly the Media Center Edition what a POS product. Stear clear of the 150mce it sucks big rocks (and ~$120 out of your pocket) bah I'm gonna return the stupid thing :angry: