How to Buy a TV Tuner Card for a Computer

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Chris Bryce with Superservice.com. Today I'd like to talk to you about how to buy a TV tuner card for a computer. Now the main thing to keep in mind about TV tuner cards today is that in February of 2009, analog TV stations will not be broadcast anymore. Only HD stations will be being broadcast. So you need to make sure that if you get a TV tuner card, it's got at least the HD tuner capability in it, or that it's only HD compatible. Also, you need to keep in mind, that if you do get that tuner card that's HD compatible, you'll also need an HD compatible antennae to hook to it. Now tuner cards, when you go to buy them, also have the ability to input video directly rather than from TV stations. So that tuner card would be able to hook up to things like camcorders or digital cameras, and things like that, depending on the connections that you get on the tuner card. For today's market, I would make sure that the tuner card had at least the S video input, the RCA inputs, as well as a USB or even fire wire input as well, to make sure that whatever device you're hooking to it is going to be able to transfer the video through to the computer. Now the TV tuners also sometimes come with remote controls that will control the unit itself for playing videos or for even recording videos off of the tuner. So if you did have a say a direct TV or dish network satellite receiver that's hooked to the tuner card, you can actually use your computer as a recording device just like a Tivo or anything like that. It'll record it as a digital video recorder and save all your favorite programs, you can set it up on a scheduler, you can record up to sixteen programs at a time, so it's a very advanced way of doing a DVR. That's the best way to go about buying a TV tuner."