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brownbagc... brownbagc...
 
M$5 December 17, 2008 07:03 PM

Which TV to Computer device is better: TV Tuner Cards or external USB Tuners?

I am making one of my computers into an HDTV station so I can record my shows digitally. So I am trying to decide if using an internal tuner card is better than one of the external USB plug-in devices. It appears that they are about equal in quality, the only difference is convenience. Any suggestions? Please reference the specific device you use in case I decide to go that way.
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xds xds
 
 December 17, 2008 07:09 PM
I'm going to go with USB on this one because of portability and reliability . (USB being regulated and usually safely fused at 5 volts)

"On card" TV Tuners can also create exes heat and risk of shock.
(Short Circuit)

Which is just one more risk to fry your video and even possibly your motherboard. , USB is regulated at 5 volts and will never go over that.
Why would you want to risk it ?

But if you absolutely have to get a TV Tuner on card go for a ATI Radeon HD 3650 or higher , ATI's new accelerator software allows the GPU on board to be used for added processing power !

I say the 3650 series because this card gives you the most bang for your buck, and then if you need added performance simply climb the ladder of series eg, 4000 5000 and so on.
Source(s):
From ATI and AMD's website
ATI Stream Acceleration Turns HD Radeon 3500 and 4000 Series GPUs Into CPU's!

Asker's Rating:
• Thanks for the answer and all the great feedback on other answers. You have seriously helped me as we get closer to the New Year and the changeover to digital TV. Great job!


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natebosch natebosch
 
December 17, 2008 08:42 PM
Why are you bringing up video cards when he asked about TV tuners? Also, don't recommend he buy a new video card before he tests if his current one can play back video in high def. Many older cards, and some onboard graphics chips, can play back HD content just fine.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 09:10 PM
nate please RTFM

Most (not all but most)(the better ones anyway) TV Tuner cards are video cards and require a direct connection to there vga/hdmi port.

Granted there are some stand alone TV Tuner cards , However there are bottleneck issues with these cards.


NateBosch No offense but with over 25 years of doing reviews for AnandTech and 1SRC i think i would know what the fastest and most reliable solutions are.

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xds xds
 
December 19, 2008 09:15 PM - New Source
I really appreciate you saying so, please read this technical rant in its entirety...

I would recommend that if you do end up using a USB solution to install TV Tuner on all your system's with USB 2.0 ports so you will have everything ready to go if you plan to hot swap hardware between your systems.

As far as JMB's comment(which i completely respect) about me trying to scare anyone with me saying you could fry your motherboard , it has much more to do with just more than 1 bad circumstance that could arise.

With allot of digital cable and satellite providers they still use some form of coaxial connections, (insulated copper or gold cable wire) (basically this is just ordinary cable wire) what they probably don't want everyone to know is they protect there feeds by allot of shady methods. One of which in the industry is called "spiking" , their own proprietary "box's" are usually setup to ground this. However most video cards do not have a way of protecting/defending their own circuitry against this method.

There are also other situations that might arise that I can go into on another medium if you like.

***Ofcoars many people are probably just going be pulling in broadcast HDTV and probably you may even explore this option yourself. (I GET THAT)

My goal of this post was to basically save you a ton of aggravation.

USB will always be universal even with the new USB 3.0 connections that are coming out they will be backwards compatible with USB 2 connections .

(Please see) http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/18/usb-3-0-gets-seriously-detailed/


Allowing you to have your hardware grow with whatever setup you have in the future. Especially if you have more than one system.

I completely respect what JMB is trying to get across with respect to a "on card" solution which jacks right into the system bus. However the data stream on digital connections which are going to be using the new x.264 compression scheme will be perfectly fine with USB 2 and USB 3,... the data is all digital so no bottleneck will exist on USB.

USB 3 may(MAY*) actually also increase the performance of your tuner far beyond anything a PCI connection could.(With the architecture being revamped itself.)

As far as a IDE solution goes IDE(PATA) is mainly designed for "BURST" data (like on IDE/SATA/eSATA harddrives).
IDE and SATA drives have there own onboard cache that is designed to work with data polling specifically within its architecture .

There also exists the fact that 'IDE' and 'SATA I' will probably not be used in the future which i have taken into account as well.

So best of luck with whatever route you decide to take.

And I hope your transition into the new digital tv era goes as smooth as mine.


Kindest Regards and Happy Holidays.
~x

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cherman cherman
 
December 17, 2008 07:09 PM
A TV Tuner card is better than an external USB tuner, because the process of converting to digital and transmitting data and converting back makes the quality worse. You can find many of them here: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=1427 I really like the Hauppage card, it goes for 90 dollars.

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natebosch natebosch
 
December 17, 2008 08:34 PM
He's looking to watch HDTV, that signal will be digital all the way. No conversion necessary.
Also, the PCI cards (such as the one you've linked) perform an analog to digital conversion in the case where you have an analog tuner and an analog signal. The USB conversion does not necessarily need to be any worse than the one performed by a PCI card. Generally, from what I've seen, the USB tuners are of lower build and component quality, but not at all for the reasons you've stated.

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greenscree... greenscree...
 
December 17, 2008 07:12 PM
This is a trick question, right? They are functionally equivalent. One connects to a IDE port and the other connects to a USB port. Otherwise the electronics and functions are identical.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 07:29 PM
Ahem* You meant to say PCI or AGP slot. I believe.
I won't refute your fact this time but the next time i'll be hunting ;o)

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akuta akuta
 
December 17, 2008 08:08 PM
Actually, xds, if it's a bay drive device it could very well be connected to his IDE ribbon; although, likely it would be a card that would be running on a PCI or PCIe slot. AGP slot is a graphics port, so would be useless unless it was a video card that also contained a tv tuner (which there are).

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 09:14 PM
/me Head palms.

Akuta

That would be one very slow and unreliable video TV Tuner card.
(Being Connected to a *IDE* port.)

And there are infact video TV tuner cards that are AGP.

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mrnemo mrnemo
 
December 18, 2008 05:10 PM
The future is here

http://www.loseitfatty.com/sat.jpg


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ssharon ssharon
 
December 17, 2008 07:19 PM
This question is largely subjective based on preference and use, but here are some thoughts.

I have two USB TV tuners (for picture in picture) and they are radically different from each other. One does hardware encoding and has a 3 second lag from live TV and the other relies on software encoding and has no lag at all. On my older machine, the device with hardware encoding works very well because my CPU just doesn't have enough power to run 2 tv tuners ay once if it had to encode both. The hardware based tuner also allows time shifting without any configuration or hitting record whereas the software based tuner requires you to tell it to record whatever you are watching so that you can time shift. As you can see even external devices vary widely. However, both are portable and can be used with a laptop, something a PCI based internal card cannot do.

Internal cards have the advantage of removing desk clutter. Then again, if you connect gaming devices or VCRs with any frequency (to copy tapes to DVD) it can be annoying to get to the back of the tower to plug in a few cables. I don't think internal cards of this nature use significantly more or less power than external devices so that isn't really a concern. Likewise, I don't think a TV tuner card will get so hot that an average tower can't effectively cool it. Modern video cards are significantly more powerful, power hungry, and hot.

One other difference I might add would be remote controls. Whichever solution you get I would look for an RF based remote because it does not require line of sight. I use an ATI Remote Wonder and it works extremely well (and I got it 5 years ago for $30).

I hope that helps.

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dmc dmc
 
December 17, 2008 07:20 PM
I think cards are superior. USB ports are not bus connected per se and can't capitalize on cache, nor respond to video bandwidth as quickly as PCI connections.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 07:26 PM
And if you fry your card due to shock (Backfeed,simple improper connection,short circuit etc) your video usually goes along with it.

I have a all-in-wonder Rage card myself and have to keep a backup around just for this circumstance. It sucks. :o(

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akuta akuta
 
December 17, 2008 08:08 PM
Umm... Universal Serial Bus ports are definitely "bus connected". ;)

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dmc dmc
 
December 17, 2008 08:20 PM
akuta, I understand your comment. When I said not bus connected per se, I referred to the added pipes a PCI connect can use. I don't think we will see USB taking advantage of 64-bit technology like we now see with PCI. Thats all.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 09:16 PM
Akuta not all USB ports are connected directly to the bus believe it or not.

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eugene4968 eugene4968
 
December 17, 2008 07:29 PM
Generally the internal pci/pcie cards are a better choice. They offer better performance because of dedicated hardware to process the video, taking the strain off of your CPU. If you have a powerful cpu and video card, ie a modern core 2 duo, then this is less crucial. Internal cards do tend to be a little cheaper as well. I like the ATI (AMD) line of cards like the TV Wonder HD 650. This has a built in video processor to help give you a clean looking picture. You will want to look at which devices are compatible for the software your using to view television, such as Windows Media Center. Also you have to consider the source of your television. If you just want over the air tv, they have cheap USB adapters that will get the job done. But with cable and dish, it gets a little more complicated especially when you want to watch in High Def.

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wo wo
 
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saayedalam saayedalam
 
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dmoola dmoola
 
December 17, 2008 08:21 PM
i've had several of each. always go internal if you have the space to do so. they tend to be more reliable and you don't have to worry about cable or usb speeds and such.

for some reason when i use usb models, they tend to flake out after a while of leaving them. like the computer forgets it's attached. several tweaks help, but overall i'd definately go internal.

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natebosch natebosch
 
December 17, 2008 08:31 PM
If you are only using it for digital streams (either over the air with an antenna, or strictly QAM digital cable) then it doesn't matter it you use USB or PCI. Either will be plenty fast to save the stream of bits to your hard drive. As long as your computer is able to watch an HD video saved to your hard drive right now you will be fine with either. Even cheap ones will work fine as they don't have to do much.
If you need analog capabilities (either for analog cable, or composite video adapter) then you'll want to find something with an onboard mpeg encoder. I've found the Hauppauge PCI cards have the best build quality in this instance. I use the WinTV PVR 500 (revision E492), and I'm very satisfied. My dad has used a few different cards, some digital some analog, all Hauppauge PCI cards, and he's been happy with all of them.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 09:33 PM
This is getting a little ridiculous so let me go over some things.



FIRST and most important.

Not all USB ports jack right into the bus.
And yes i can see the irony here being called "Universal Serial Bus"
However shortly after gateway in 2000 started making virtual bus connections with there systems allot of other manufacturers started requesting the change as well.
Most commonly this is found on a laptop but any pc made after 2001 usually has a USB port that is off bus and grounded.


Second.

Stand alone PCI/AGP tuner cards are CRAP!

There is little acceleration support for x.264 encoding and digital feeds always have issues.


The best way to go seeing he has more than one system is to get a USB tuner card and install software and drivers in both systems.

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jeffk jeffk
 
December 17, 2008 09:33 PM
USB cards are a waste of money in my opinion. The one I had overheated a lot. I would only buy a USB card if you have a laptop and cant install a regular card. Get a good Hauppage tuner card with a hardware accelerator. I have the Hauppage 1800 one digital one analog tuner and it supports QAM signal.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 09:43 PM
Did it happen to be a older Hauppage model that over heated ?

Very Early variations of USB TV Tuners had issues with there plastic housings but this was a very small issue.

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jeffk jeffk
 
December 17, 2008 09:52 PM
No, the one I had that overheated was a Pinnacle HDTV pro

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protojmb protojmb
 
December 17, 2008 10:42 PM
A PCI or PCIexpress tuner would definitely be better than a USB tuner because PCI/PCIe is a faster connection. That goes for any type of USB v. PCI/PCIe situation. PCI is directly connected into the motherboard so the CPU can access it more efficiently.

I do not have a tuner myself, so I really don't have a preference as of yet. If I did go and buy a tuner, I would first shop around, and look at reviews.

I would probably check out this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116015

Or if you don't have PCIe, I would look at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116007

EDIT: I had the wrong link for the PCI card, that's fixed.

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xds xds
 
December 17, 2008 11:20 PM - Fact Refuted
Those cards are both PCIe and the amount data being transfer between the interfaces really wouldn't make any difference AT ALL its usb or pci/agp it's all in the hardware architecture decoding and software decoding that makes the most difference especially with a HD Signal.

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protojmb protojmb
 
December 18, 2008 12:24 AM
Yes the wrong link was my fault. I copied the wrong link. That is fixed.

Now, you put "fact refuted", but the fact remains (and like everyone else is saying) that cards are generally faster and more reliable than USB based products.

Now I am not saying USB tuners are bad period, it's just not optimal for this situation. USB tuners are meant more for laptops, and portability. If you aren't going to take it anywhere though then what's the point? Plus there is always the chance you could break off the USB tuner and have a non-working USB port.

As for the "mobo fry" scare, if heat is an issue WITH the card, then it was most likely an issue without it in the first place. Plus short circuiting is only a problem if your rig isn't up to par, and you aren't careful

Just because there is M$ involved, does not mean you need to troll everybody who is trying to help out here xds. I really don't care about the M$ myself, I just want to make sure the dude gets a good answer.

Now if the OP does want to take the tuner somewhere, perhaps quick swap with another computer or whatever, by all means go with USB. Also, USB is fine if you don't feel like opening up your computer. I am just saying that a PCI or PCI express is a more optimal solution in a desktop computer.

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drustvold drustvold
 
December 18, 2008 02:01 AM
Get an internal Happauge card (whichever best suites your needs) and you'll be happy like I am with mine. Mines been running non stop for almost 6 months with the system only being restarted for system updates. I've had 0 problems.

There is basically 0 risk of shock or heat issues if your computer is properly grounded and ventilated. And if there was there would be no difference between a TV tuner card and any other card you put in your system.

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