Anybody out there have a TV card fitted in their PC?

What's the quality like and how much of the scren does the window take up; can you have a full screen picture, e.g. on a 17" monitor?

What are the pros and cons please?

I don't know any shops that would offer a demo!

 

I have the WinFast TV2000XP Deluxe card. The window is totally resizable or you can go full screen. Pretty much all TV cards will be the same.

 

What's the quality of picture like on full screen? I heard that the interpolation can cause the picture to be bad unless the window is relatively small?

Would an ATI All-In-Wonder card do the same job? I want to burn TV programmes onto CDs or maybe DVDs at a later date (when I upgrade to a DVD burner)?

 

The quality is spot on using S-Video. Composite & RF is not bad, but S-Video gives a good picture at any size, even fullscreen. You can capture at full DVD resolution with no frame drops. I've had no problems with interpolation.

 

I'm running a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 in my shuttle using S-Video out to a 36" Toshiba. This card is an analogue TV tuner with built-in MPEG encoding to allow a video source to be recorded or 'paused' like Sky+. It isn't limited to TV channels and has an S-Video input for other video sources like as a VCR or Satellite box. Quality is very good and you would never know you were watching the output from a PC.

Snapstreams Beyond TV is a worthwhile download that will let you use your PC as a personal video recorder for timeshifting etc.

http://www.snapstream.com/