Windows 7: TV Tuner Cards ?

I'm considering buying a TV Tuner Card mainly to view Free-view in the UK, I have looked at a few and notice quite a large selection can be had (we can receive Free-view were I live), so what do I need to look for in my purchase please ?, any advice very welcome

Depends on what you want, if you only want to watch TV, then you could just buy a simple PCI TV Tuner, but if you want something more professional (maybe for recording live TV or so), you might need a specialized one.

Check here: Newegg.com -HDTV TV Tuner, Video Editing,TV Tuner Card, USB TV Tuner, Hauppauge TV Tuner, External TV Tuner, PC to TV, HDTV USB TV Tuner, Converter,AVerMedia TV Tuner,Video Transfer,VGA Adapter,Video Capture,Laptop TV Tuner, Notebook TV Tuner,Video D

On the left panel, there's different Types

Cheers, C.

Thanks Punkster It would be for just watching TV ... so any standard TV card would do ?

eg - Cheap TV Tuner Cards from Compro, KWorld & PCTV Systems

As long as it's compatible with Windows 7, there should be zero problems! although i'd recommend a good quality one.

Haven't heard those "Compro" or "KWorld" TV tuners.

We have SKY and also a high gain antenna (for Digital) on our roof so I would want to connect to the antenna buy cable ...

Coaxial cable? then you only need a PCI (regular or express) TV Tuner with a coaxial input/output. if you have a really long coaxial cable to hook it to the PC, no problems

+1 ... Thanks for the advice ...

Ciara ... X

You're welcome, C.

Cheers. let me know how it works out!

I have been liking my Hauppauge TV tuners. Hauppauge arguably makes the best tuners on the market in terms of reliability.

Tuners for Desktop PC come in PCI and PCI-e flavors. Tuners for laptops are USB. They come Regular and HDTV.

Beware of the claim that these cards are "dual tuner" and can record one show while watching another (or record two shows at once). While technically correct - there are 2 tuners on the card - it would only apply if you had 2 different TV sources, something most of us would not do. One tuner on the card is for Analog TV signals - either from Cable or over the air(NTSC format), and the other tuner is for Digital TV signals - either from Cable, FiberO, or Other (ATSC/ClearQAM formats). Bottom line is that if you want to record two shows at once you need 2 cards. Very few cable systems use NTSC anymore.

Your Tuner is the hardware that turns your PC into a TV, but you still need software to use it. The card you buy will come with software - Hauppage uses WinTV. I don't recommend WinTV other than to set up the card for initial use (Great tuners-Horrible Software!). There are many TV programs to choose from but you want to be sure the software has your tuner card on it's qualified hardware list. I have been using SageTV for years and like it. And there is always Windows Media Center.

If you are looking at other brands of TV tuners steer clear of any that do not do hardware encoding (encoding on the card). These use the PC's resources and can slow down the system. Worse, normal use of your PC can fudge your recordings with errata. Cards that do everything on their own can run without a hitch in very old systems - Like an old P4 that I use as a dual tuner PVR.

Hope that helps.

If you connect directly to a satellite antenna, you need a card or system which can handle DVB S. If you want digital HDTV stations then you will need DVB S2

DVB-S2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You might like to look at this;

devolo dLAN TV Sat PC Starter Kit: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Not cheap, but very good. No cables, no cards, no power drain on the PC. It is completely separate from your PC ( Which is what I wanted ), and runs on a LAN which runs over your mains power cables. You just stick an adapter in a plug socket and attach the other end to a LAN port. I am very pleased with it.

Some more info; http://www.devolo.com/consumer/53_dl...on_1.html?l=en

Regards....Mike Connor