TV Tuner.. USB or PCMCIA?

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r1ckchard · #1 Post by **r1ckchard** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 9:59 pm

I'm thinking about buying a TV Tuner for my T42, but I was wondering about the quality of the USB and PCMCIA options. Does anyone have any experience with either, and perhaps suggestions on which one to get. I am a student at college and cable TV is provided, provided I have a coaxial cable and something to connect it to. Any help is appreciated, and thanks in advance!

christopher_wolf · #2 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:33 am

I would recommend getting a USB tuner, especially if you plan on using the PC Card slots for anything else. Right now, from what I have seen, the quality is about the same now with USB 2.0 and a good quality tuner. Pretty much everything has improved since they moved over to USB 2.0. From Hauppauge, the WinTV-HVR-950 is a good bet; it also supports ATSC HD DTV as well as analog input.

agarza · #3 Post by **agarza** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 7:24 am

Ahh this made me remember back 3 years from now when I was using an old USB 1.1 TV tuner (ATi) which did a crappy job capturing

That was back when I had my A22e (still functional)

DIGITALgimpus · #4 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:04 am

USB 2.0 is a bare minimum for video. Note that HD will not really work on USB 2.0.

Thinkpaddict · #5 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:57 pm

I have been using a PCMCIA tuner in my T23 now for the past year, and the quality is great. I got it off eBay for $40 or so. I did some reading in the web, and it appears that it has Philips converters, which are supposed to be some of the best according to what I read.

As far as capturing, the software that comes with it is pretty good giving you lots of options (you can even capture to VCD/SVCD, besides capturing to AVI and MPEG if I remember correctly.) You can control the bitrate, screen size, and quality of the capture. In my T23 I can capture things with pretty good quality but I have to limit the bitrate somehow. The quality is very acceptable. I imagine that if you use a Thinkpad with a Pentium M you will be able to make a capture pretty much indistinguishable from the original. It came with a remote control too, which is handy.

Unless you need to use PCMCIA while you are capturing or watching TV, I recommend you go with PCMCIA since it is more compact than USB. But if having another thing hooked up to your computer doesn't bother you, go USB.

agarza · #6 Post by **agarza** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:27 pm

Can you post a sample video Thinkaddict?

Thinkpaddict · #7 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 6:10 pm

I will be able to post a sample tomorrow. Don't let me forget

gearguy · #8 Post by **gearguy** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:55 am

DIGITALgimpus wrote:USB 2.0 is a bare minimum for video. Note that HD will not really work on USB 2.0.

Taking into account compression. If you apply slightly more aggresive compression I see no reason why you couldn't get HD going down a USB 2 line, you have plenty of Mbps to play with ;p

DIGITALgimpus · #9 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:07 am

gearguy wrote: Taking into account compression. If you apply slightly more aggresive compression I see no reason why you couldn't get HD going down a USB 2 line, you have plenty of Mbps to play with ;p

IMHO compression tends to fix the bandwidth issue, but the performance still stinks unless you use hardware decoding, which in this case needs to be on the mobo. Or you have a ton of CPU to handle that.

Thinkpaddict · #10 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:21 pm

benottomex wrote:Can you post a sample video Thinkaddict?

Check your mailbox

mybellyisempty · #11 Post by **mybellyisempty** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:29 pm

USB, as sadly PC Cards are disappearing in modern laptops (IBM aside).

I personally use a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB MCE on my Dell E1705. Hardware encoding.

Granted, it requires that you use Media Center Edition, but there is software is compatible with XP Pro. There is also a standard edition that has a slightly different remote, that costs a bit more.

As far as quality, it's acceptable. I'm using it as a VCR so I can catch shows I'd miss during class, rather than copying it with plans of compressing it and keeping it.

agarza · #12 Post by **agarza** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:55 pm

Thinkpaddict wrote:
benottomex wrote:Can you post a sample video Thinkaddict?
Check your mailbox

OK. Thank you

TV Tuner.. USB or PCMCIA?

TV Tuner.. USB or PCMCIA?

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