TV Tuners

[Graham]

Are there any HD TV tuners available for PCs? I'm greatly considering selling my current TV (flatscreen 20" Phillips) to a friend and using the money to buy a 20" widescreen viewsonic with a tv tuner.

Currently at college i take an s-video out of the pc and put it into the phillips tv and it does not exactly come out so great since it is a 4:3 format. the 16:10 or whatever monitors should get a decent signal for tv and have reasonable movie playback. this is for a room that is not too big so 20" high-def screen is perfect. the logitech digital speakers i got are great for it, too

I don't really know much about TV tuners, but I have seen them around and think they are decent. thank you for any help.

 

[Someonelse]

you will need Vista, HD compatible monitor and a lot more..

 

[The General]

What? No he won't.

1. They have made HDTV tuner cards for years.
2. HD compatible monitor? You must be joking, HD = high resolution. They have had monitors that are "HD" resolution for 15 years!! The monitor I have is 2048x1536, HD 1080p is 1940x1080, so monitors are not a problem. Even if his monitor doesn't support that resolution, he can scale it down to whatever he wants. HDTV is not some all mighty power that is completely new and different. It's just high resolution video, it's not that big of a deal.
3. Vista would provide nothing but a performance DECREASE. Vista is not some all mighty power that controls the universe. It's just Windows XP with a pretty GUI and a free virus scan program. Actually there's an HDTV tuner card that ONLY works with Linux, and not with ANY Windows operating system (including Vista ).
4. A lot more? Like what? What else does he need other than any operating system and one of these cards (I'm sure there are more, these are the search results worth looking at on Newegg):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116310
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815325001
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815163001
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100140

Link to Linux one (works good, incase you are using this for a MythTV box): http://www.pchdtv.com/

 

[Someonelse]

oops i meant HDCP compliant monitor, HDCP compliant graphics card etc..

 

[The General]

Nope, wrong again. ATCS is converted to MPEG2 (or 4 depending on the card). Why would you need an HDCP compliant monitor again? Makes no sense.

I could use one with my VGA monitor and a Geforce 2, using Linux or Windows. It makes no sense that you would say anything about Vista, and are you ignoring my links to various cards that say nothing about HDCP compliant monitors or video cards as requirements to use them?

 

[Someonelse]

hmm i see, well thanks for the links and let me ask you smth then cause am not a pro in these things, to view HD content i dont need to have HDCP compliant devices? Isnt it all protected? or it only works for discs and TV is free from it?

 

[Graham]

hmm i see, well thanks for the links and let me ask you smth then cause am not a pro in these things, to view HD content i dont need to have HDCP compliant devices? Isnt it all protected? or it only works for discs and TV is free from it?

I think my ten-year-old cousin writes better....

But anyways, thank you General for that info. I'm glad to see there are such cards for me to consume

From the reviews it looks like analouge signal is dirty, but the HD signal is brilliant! I'll post a review of what card i get in the future.

 

[Someonelse]

I think my ten-year-old cousin writes better....

well good luck to you both

 

[The General]

hmm i see, well thanks for the links and let me ask you smth then cause am not a pro in these things, to view HD content i dont need to have HDCP compliant devices? Isnt it all protected? or it only works for discs and TV is free from it?

As far as I know, either the TV signal is not protected or the HDTV tuner card decodes it. I'm pretty sure its that TV is not "protected" though. lol, I like how they call it "protected," when really, the only thing they are protecting is their wallets.

If TV is "protected" then the card probably is HDCP compliant and decodes it. It doesn't have HDMI inputs, lol they'll never let that happen. So I guess if you have a Blu-Ray machine and an HD-DVD player in your computer, you can watch all "HD" content, protected or not, on your computer. EDIT: NOT SATELLITE "HD" CONTENT! And you can output it to a TV using DVI (and record it using DVI as DVI is un-encrypted , but I bet soon monitors will have to use HDMI and video cards will output HDMI )

They think they're going to keep this stuff locked down and boost profits, but they are forgetting one thing: "If I can see it and hear it, I can record it."

That combined with the fact that every form of encrypted/protected content has been cracked. I think DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) was cracked in a matter of weeks. HDMI is only a matter of time.

 

[Someonelse]

well they do protect their wallets, big time, and i agree that there is a high probability HDCP will be broken sooner or later, but for now even some new "HD" tv's without HDCP are apparently useless.. being interested in buying one myself i am trying to get as much info as possible so i protect my wallet too plus an HD tuner card would be nice to have but my concern was whether i also needed a monitor with HDCP for it..