pcmcia tv tuner/capture card

[warbird]

Is there such thing? I recently aquired an ibm thinkpad 600x with p3/500 and dvd/cdrw combo drive and i want to be able to watch tv on it also, and have the ability to capture it if possible. has anyone seen such a card? all i have found is external usb devices which i do not want, i dont want any seperate external devices. i basicly want to be able to watch tv while the laptop is sitting on my lap and is completely wireless (except for maybe a tv antenna wire or something). Thanks for any help

[grossjamesh]

I am using the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB. I am very pleased with the product.
The Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB will capture MEPEG 1 - 2.
My computer is a DELL Latitude C600.

If you have any questions I will be glad to try and answer them.

[ftothe3]

you're pleased with it? i've only heard bad things about it. it runs on usb 1.1 not 2.0 so the video must be compressed a lot. isn't the quality low?

[grossjamesh]

For those of us who only use laptops there are few choices. However in extensive testing I have found that at MPEG2 capture level there is little visual difference. When viewed on my home theater. When making VCDs the quality equals that of VHS tapes.
The quality of Hauppauge's SW has improved greatly in the last two years.
The WinTV PVR USB does hardware encoding. This does relieve the main computer of a lot of processing.
I can give you some hints that may help in using the product. Just ask.

[n6nfg]

When I looked into USB 1 video devices, someone pointed out to
me that the bandwidth of USB 1.0 is adaquate IF the
video is compressed well enough. Recall that a commercial DVD
bit rate rarely exceeds 8 Mb, and the USB 1.0 devices generally
can get up to 7 Mb of effective bandwidth at the hardware level.
The key is to effectivly real-time compress the video to these
constraints. The cheap hardware found in these devices generally
isn't up to the task, and everyone concludes the quality suffers
because it is USB 1.0 instead of 2.0.

-n6nfg