Tv Tuner Recommendation

Hello,

I would like to hear some recommendations for an USB external TV tuner. I've seen some in Amazon.com but most of them have somewhat contradicting reviews so I'd like some opinions of the people here as I know there are many of you who far know these things better than me. Another important thing for me is that I want to play with my PS2 with my laptop screen as I'm asked too often for the TV (even though I don't spend THAT much time). So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. A plus would be if it doesn't need MCE, I have XP pro on my laptop.

PD: I don't want PCMCIA tuners, I have that spot saved for the Audigy card.

 

Do you have a CardBus slot?

http://www.aver.com/2005home/product/tvtuner/cardbus/cardbusmce/cardbusmce.shtml

Works with all versions of Windows.

Or alternatively they have a PCMCIA model.

And a USB product:
http://www.aver.com/2005home/product/tvtuner/usb/usbmce/usbmce.shtml

 

Here's a slightly different, but related question.

I found this on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-USB-2-0-Ext...8795201146QQcategoryZ3761QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's a $36 (inc. shipping) usb tv tuner off eBay. I'd be inclined to grab this personally but I'm pretty cheap..

What am I giving up if I go with a super cheap generic item like this?

 

Abandon hope of playing video games on your laptop. Most video capture cards have as much as several seconds of delay for encoding and synchronizing the video.

 

I totally disagree. I run my PS2 using the Pinnacle PCTV USB 50e (the 100e is the newer version) on my laptop and it works great, as long as I enable Acceleration by Graphics card as that reduces the delay to about 0.1-0.2 seconds. By enabling further options, the delay could be reduced even more, but sometimes that might mean losing video quality (for example changing interlacing options).
I haven't tried out any FPSes yet (they are the most delay sensitive games), but I have tried fighting games like Soul Calibur 4 and God of War, and they work great.

 

Well, 200 milliseconds in a FPS is certainly enough time to get fragged...

 

Zicky, where are you thinking of buying this? I can advise you if you are in the UK but if you are in the US then I dont know much about the stuff over there.

 

Not in the UK, I live on the other side of the pond I don't live in the US either but I will buy it from there.

I have heard about the lag with tv tuners, I found elsewhere an application that supposedly gives you no lag but it's only meant for the hauppauge tv tuner. I am more inclined towards this one.

Thank you all for you recommendations.

 

You can see what they have to say on the forums here:

http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard/index.php?sid=1c103bcc14e04edc83c65612964618bd

They have a special section on using your tv card for gaming.

Hope that helps.

 

get a expresscard slot card they have a data bandwidth of 2.4gb/s i think avermedia has one with av in.

 

Apparently the GameBridgeTV TV Tuner by Adaptec is designed to have no lag when playing video games on your laptop. Costs $70 without TV tuner capabilites, and $100 with.

 

I've heard you mention this ExpressCard tuner before, but I've been unable to find it on AVerMedia's site. Actually I can't find it anywhere except in press releases dating back to September 04. I'm very interested in this tuner. Is this thing vaporware or is it only available in certain countries right now?

 

i have yet to find a tv tuner for ExpressCard fitment.

 

http://www.averm.co.uk/avermedia/aver/products_odm_E508.asp?show=2
that one is expresscard and has av inputs, this one is digital http://www.averm.co.uk/avermedia/aver/products_odm_E568.asp?show=2
but no av input.

 

I can't wait this to be released in USA!
It's way cheaper than the HP tuner...

 

Same here. Wonder what the hold up is?

 

the digital tv tuner is understandable cuse its dvb-t and i think usa uses dvb-s. The analogue not a clue says it works with NTSC