TV Tuner Cards - Watch TV in Your Computer with a Tuner Card

TV tuner cards are used to receive TV signals and display received transmission on a computer screen and with signals received through a coaxial cable connector, an MPEG-4 decoder inside the computer converts TV signals into viewable formats. Most TV tuner cards come complete with necessary tuner software, a radio tuner, infrared receiver, and remote control.

Types

There are also different kinds of TV tuner cards available to suit your needs. They are: analog TV tuner cards, digital TV tuner cards, hybrid tuner cards, and combo tuner cards.

1. Cards for analog TV basically output tuner data that is then passed on to normally the system processor for intensive encoding. More expensive models however are capable of encoding tuner data into MPEG format, relieving the system processor of this duty. Apart from output, analog TV tuner cards also have input capabilities for composite videos or S-videos while others still can receive FM radio signals.

2. Digital TV tuner cards, on the other hand, function by broadcasting an MPEG stream that doesn't need any encoding device. Instead, the tuner cards extract the proper PIDs from a transport stream that require not as much processing power.

3. Hybrid tuner cards can handle both digital and analog inputs by having one main tuner that can be programmed as a digital or analog tuner. Switching between two modes is relatively easy and the tuner cards will operate as either an analog or digital tuner until reprogrammed.

4. Combo tuner cards just made everything easier by integrating both a digital and an analog tuner in one card. Similar to hybrid tuner cards, combo tuner cards have two separate tuners instead. You can watch anything using the analog tuner while recording digital data, and vice versa. The advantage of using a combo tuner card (compared to using two separate digital and analog tuner cards) is the utilization of a computer expansion slots and the cost.

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