TV Tuner cards

I basically watch so much on my PC screen that I figure there's no point for my TV any more - until I can afford a LCD anyway

So I'm looking for a TV Tuner and there's so many brands and various price points I wouldn't know where to start.

So do many people have them in their PC and what are the good brands? What should I look for when purchasing one? What should I avoid?

Dude, you should check out http://www.dtvforum.info/

Its got a whole section on Tuner Cards, if anyone knows whats good, the geeks over there will.

Do manufacturers make tuner cards that pick up digital ?? I'd say to go for one of those !
Can you still umm ... sample foxtel through the cable lines ?

( sorry to hijack your thread ;p )

Exactly - my PC+Mac monitor is bigger than my PC 

Leadtek, Fusion, DViCO, Hauppage, etc all make good good DVB-T cards

Just depends whether you want just digital, digital+analog, twin digital (to watch other channels whilst recording another), etc.

I'm gonna get a Leadtek DTV1000 because they're only $49 from MSY

http://www.msy.com.au

I had a great run with a DVICO card, so I would recommend that brand. I found their software was stable and each new release fixed minor problems and introduced new features - unlike some other brands who don't update their buggy software at all...

Check these out: http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/#dvbt

I haven't had one for about 6 months now. I sold it since I don't think there's anything worth watching on TV and I don't use a desktop system as my primary computer anymore though, not because there was anything wrong with it...   

Phunkii basically any new tuner will pickup digital TV signals. I have no idea about Foxtel but since you need a decoder box thing I'm guessing you can't just 'sample' it easily.

i'll put in another vote for leadtek being great value

probably you could get something better but if that will do the job it won't crush your wallet

i know at least 2 people who have had great use of these cards for the last 6 or 7 years and got them for next to nothing

i've got an avertek (i think thats it?) tv tuner, uses usb and comes with a remote control. works really well in the city, gets a bit more dicey once u hit the flatlands of adelaide (ie mile end or brompton)

When Foxtel was analog over coax there was a way of doing it with the older BT848 chipsets, but that was years ago.

Anything is possible tho

Thumbs up for the Dvico, I got a fairly pricey one a while back but there's no problems and the HD is top notch. I used it to record most of the big games in the last FIFA World Cup. There's a cheap Australian made one that I've also used at www.digitalnow.com.au which for the price and the bonus of having local support are ddecent. But not as polished as the top of the range Dvico...

When you get one do a bit of searching, the dtvforum sites mentioned below was great, and get a program called WebScheduler running, which enables you to schedule recording and add command line parameters to shut down after etc.

I had mine configured to wake up from hibernation, record then shutdown if no other shows were coming up or go back to hibernation if there was more coming up.

Record it straight as an mpeg and use a program called Cuttermaran to cut out your adverts.

Then simply plug the edited mpeg into another program called Auto Gordian Knot (AutoGK) which automates the process of resizing and encoding to divx.

It sounds difficult and believe me I spent hours of researching forums and working out the programs but once it's done it's all gravy. It's even easier if there's no ads to cut out because you can commandline through WebScheduler to AutoGK it straight up then shutdown so you have a divx all done when you have finished recording.

SBS shows were fantastic for this until the greedy bastards decided to stick ads in their shows just like the other bloody channels!

I've got a media center pc I built running 2 DVICO HDTV+ Fusion cards. They run HDTV and SDTV (Both digitial formats) just great.

Now you can get dual tuners on the one card. There are some cards out now that are hybrid cards where you can use analog or digital as mentioned above. The benefit to dual tuners comes if you want to record one show on your pc while watching another. Or you can record 2 shows at once.