So basically I need a tv tuner for my laptop so I won't need another tv in my room. We have Digital cable from time warner. What would be a good external tuner? And if you're really bored you could find me one on ebay for a decent price.

7/31/2008 9:06:58 AM

first of all, you're not going to be able to receive all the digital channels using a pc tv tuner (that is, unless your PC comes with that awesome ATI OCAP cablecard tuner, but cablelabs won't let them sell it standalone)

you'll only be able to receive the ones that come in via clear QAM (i.e. the local HDs, a few others) and the analog channels.

that being said, i have the following one:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/PCTV+Tuners/PCTV+Analog_Digital+PVR/PCTV+HD+Pro+Stick.htm

haven't had any problems with it.

7/31/2008 9:24:14 AM

I like that pinnacle thing...it's neat

7/31/2008 9:51:12 AM

i hate the USB sticks...in my experience, they don't work nearly as well as internal PCI/PCIe cards or one of hauppauge's express cards (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1500.html)

if you're interested, HP sent me an extra hauppauge wintv-hvr-1500 (the one listed above), so if you have a laptop with with an express card slot, it might work out for you

7/31/2008 10:24:54 AM

http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun

7/31/2008 10:31:01 AM

^ those are awesome...but $texas...i'd love to have one

7/31/2008 11:48:06 AM

^^^ That's a decent one- I've liked it.

8/1/2008 12:58:15 AM

Quote :

"those are awesome...but $texas...i'd love to have one"

you consider $169 to be $texas?

8/1/2008 2:44:20 AM

sweet. I've been looking for one of these as well but never really had faith in the USB ones. I'm going to look at that HVR-1500. I have the PVR-250 for my desktop and it works fine.

8/1/2008 8:58:55 AM

slingbox is pretty cool, but it's not an actual TV tuner for the PC and doesn't do HD material.

8/1/2008 7:27:24 PM

I second Evan's suggestion of the Pinnacle. I have the Ultimate version (same as the Pro but it includes a QAM tuner). I hope you're on Windows, though, because it's a pain to install on Linux.

8/1/2008 8:18:18 PM

^^thought there was a slingbox pro HD.

8/2/2008 4:13:28 PM

the slingbox pro does have an HDMI slot, but doesn't do full HD broadcast even if it's just over lan.

"HD component input support with resolution up to 1080i (down-converted for streaming)"

8/3/2008 3:04:58 AM