Laptop TV tuners

[Inventive Software]

I'm looking for a TV tuner, and thought this subforum was appropriate, as I'm after a digital and analogue combined tuner compatible with my Dell Inspiron 1501. My knowledge of TV tuners doesn't really go beyond looking at the specs online, reading some reviews if they're there and maybe making my mind up.

I'm essentially after something compatible with XP MCE 2005, is a digital tuner and analogue, though I can probably go without the analogue if the tuner's reputable, has external aerial support via a Co-ax port cause I don't trust the internal one to pick up a signal in my flat, and costs less than £50. Oh, and I need one in the next 3 months so I get my fix of F1 in time for the circus to restart in March. :D

Suggestions very welcome as I've no clue. ;)

[pluto32]

I use the tinyUSB 2 DVB-T Receiver on a notebook and it works great for Australian terrestrial broadcasts.

If you also want an analogue tuner then you might want to look at the: DNTV Live! USB Hybrid Receiver

You can check out the details here: http://www.digitalnow.com.au/dvbtcards.html

If you have any questions, check out their forum: http://forums.dvbowners.com/

[Turtleggjp]

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/eng/Products/dvbtnano.aspx

This is probably the closest thing to what I use. I live in the US and use their ATSC tuners and have been pretty happy with it. Not sure if it's in your price range though.

Matt

[o324712]

Just got mine yesterday and have already made an avi of last night's "NUMB3RS" broadcast.

Researched this one, Fusion HDTV5 Gold, and Pinnacle HDTV USB Stick. AVS Forums good place to look along with an endorsement from Dave Graveline's website. One of his top ten.

Now for the bad news, I don't think it will meet your £50 criteria. Check out atomicpark.com for best price.

Cheers,
Rich

[allo]

FREECOM do a Digital stick(£30) and a hybrid analogue/digital(£50) .. i bought mine from amazon.co.uk or www.freecom.com

good luck.

[CityK]

I'm looking for a TV tuner...I'm after a digital and analogue combined tuner...My knowledge of TV tuners doesn't really go beyond looking at the specs online, reading some reviews if they're there and maybe making my mind up....Suggestions very welcome as I've no clue. ;)Despite their good intentions, you can ignore the suggestions that people from North America give you, as the products they suggest are only for that market place.

For digital, your looking for a card that supports DVB-T (for over-the-air i.e. broadcasts transmissions) and DVB-C (if your interested in digital cable too) .... North America uses ATSC for OTA and SCTE 07 for digital cable (although most NA users would only recognize what is meant by SCTE 07 if you, wrongly, called it QAM)

[MaxPowers]

what's actually faster? PCMCIA or USB2 ?

because I've got a Intel Pentium 4, 2Ghz and 512Mb ddr ram,
I can watch tv with my dnt Combitune usb2 tv adaptor (= analog & DVB-t), but for recording it (with WinDVR, cause the included software Cyberlink Power Cinema is far to slow, or should I say, that software needs a far faster pc...) it's too slow (most usb2 card vendors say you need at least a 2.4Ghz processor to record, but I think the usb2 isn't fast enough? since mpeg2 bitrates are quite high, and it has to you through usb2?)

also I think the usb2 on my desktop pc (athlon xp 2400+, MSI K7N2 Delta MoBO) is a lot faster?

will it work with a PCMCIA tv card (are quite cheap on ebay...)?

anyone?

[CityK]

what's actually faster? PCMCIA or USB2 ?assuming the PCMCIA card is a 32bit Cardbus (opperating at 33MH)z, then this would "theoretically" be a faster interface then USB .... mathematically, Cardbus would have max. ~ 127MBps , USB 2.0 ~57MBps.

because I've got a [U]Intel Pentium 4, 2Ghz...but for recording it (with WinDVR, cause the included software Cyberlink Power Cinema is far to slow, or should I say, that software needs a far faster pc...) it's too slow (most usb2 card vendors say you need at least a 2.4Ghz processor to record, but I think the usb2 isn't fast enough? since mpeg2 bitrates are quite high, and it has to you through usb2?)The usb device contains a decoder that digitizes the analog signal into an uncompressed bitstream. This is what is sent across the [us]bus to the host processor for encoding. Even at SD resolutions, this bitstream is quite large and would likely be pushing the actual limitations of your mobo's usb chipset's transfer rate capabilities. Then you mentioned that you're encoding with high bitrates. Why not tune down the bitrate and see what your results are like.

also I think the usb2 on my desktop pc (athlon xp 2400+, MSI K7N2 Delta MoBO) is a lot faster?could be...60MBps is of course only the theoretical max rate, but in real world situations, the actual transfer rate ability of usb chipset on your mobo can vary a fair amount....and I've never seen any approach the theoretical top...in addition, your also dealing with two layers -- the usb bridge chipset in the usb capture device and the usb controller on your motherboard. Some chipsets don't necessarily work well in combination together.

will it work with a PCMCIA tv card (are quite cheap on ebay...)?it might work a little better, but I suspect that your real bottleneck is capturing at too high bitrates for your processor.

In any regards, your question deals with analog capture and should have gone in the correct forum

[MaxPowers]

thanks for your detailed and very informative reply ;-) (sorry for my late answer),

In a way it's not totally analog, the capturing is, but source is a DigiBox, but it only has 2 scarts for video, so no way to capture digital, and the smartcard is linked to the digibox, so I can't use it in any other device....

well I bought a pcmcia tv-card, and capturing with WinDVR works fine now (even at 7200kbs variable bitrate)!

thanks again,

take care!