Need Recommendations on TV Tuner/Capture card

[tweakfreak]

Whats up everyone, I want to get a TV tuner so I can capture TV shows on to my Hard drive where I can edit out the commericials and burn to DVDs. What do you recommend. I dont want to spend a lot of cash. All I want is that the capture will look as good as the original. Thank you all in advance.

[txpharoah]

Look into the ATI All In Wonder cards. Quality is excellent, usually only outperformed by cards in the $1K pus price range.

And your'e lucky... right now the discontinued ATI 7500 (replaced by 8500 and 9700 cards) cards are selling as low as $125 in some stores. Check this week's ads. I saw one for $119 somewhere after $50 rebate.

And don't let "discontinued" scare you. All the ATI AIW Radeon cards use the same capture software (MMC), and the ATI sites maintains driver updates for even its oldest cards.

I'm using both a 7200 cand 7500 card, and my output is excellent, and I've yet to have a single customer complain. I got what I paid for (and my cards were ~$200 to ~$300 at the time).

In any case, find an internal AGP card, not something external (USB/firewire) and not something PCI. Find a $200+ card (although you can get lucky sometimes as is the case on the ATI 7500 card), as that seems to be the price break between good and blah. Pro is $1K+ range, so you're still in the consumer arena.

"as good as the original" was you key phrase. So you need something good.

The guide below in my sig also has a VHS->DVD guide for using ATI cards.

[tweakfreak]

I dont want it to be a graphics card just strictly a TV Tuner. I already have a geforce 4 so I dont want to scrap that.

[anggk]

Try Pinnacle PCTV.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=6&Langue_ID=10

About US$50.00.

Hope this will help.

Rgds.

anggk@idigi.net.my

[txpharoah]

I dont want it to be a graphics card just strictly a TV Tuner. I already have a geforce 4 so I dont want to scrap that.

Your choice, but the single ATI will undoubtly outperform any combo of tuner/capture/video setup you make (the Gforce4 isn't all that great). You'll also have issues of the cards wanting to not cooperate. Good luck. Just remember you'll get what you pay for. I'm not sure what to tell you if you want to cut corners.

I'm not a backer of their lower-end products, but a low-end Canopus may work for you (I'd NEVER get anything Pinnacle), but quality and speed won't be as good as ATI output. This advice given only since you shot down the ATI advice.

[tweakfreak]

Im not shooting anything down but I spent 300 on a geforce 4 therefore Im not going to just throw that away to capture TV on my Hard drive. Im sure there are stand alone cards that will do what I want to do.

[Varmit]

The Canopus products are supreme.. I do a lot of TV caps from cartoons like spongebob to full length movies.. You will not find anything to do a better capture with. I use the Canopus ADVC 100.. it rocks.

www.canopus.com

[tweakfreak]

Is there any others that will give me similiar quality without a 300 price tag? Thanks in advance to all the people who are trying to help me out.

[skateni]

Is there any others that will give me similiar quality without a 300 price tag? Thanks in advance to all the people who are trying to help me out.

Try this DAC-100, it's abt 100 cheaper than the ADVC-100 but works the same