The trouble with TV cards, is the software. Many cards, the hardware
would be fine, but the software is lacking.
In the three reviews for the Diamond (Theater chip based) product, one
person mentions it works with Media Center. Which implies perhaps
that is what it was designed for. ATI stopped doing their own (nice)
software for the Wonder product line, years ago, and instead started
relying on third parties, so that companies like Diamond could build
tuners with ATI (AMD) chips. And in this case, the software might
amount to a Media Center compatible driver, rather than a complete
package. In Windows 8, Media Center is an add-on you pay money for,
so TV recording is not free on Win8. There are plenty of other
TV recording softwares, some of which are payware as well. MythTV
is free, but then you have to check what tuners it can use.
Always check the customer review section, to see what alternatives
exist for software. The bundled software is almost never adequate.
If the reviewers were unable to get it to work with anything, the
purchase would be a waste of money. Even though the hardware
might be perfectly fine.
*******
Make sure the tuner card, covers your local media formats. Here
for example, analog TV (NTSC/PAL/Secam flavored stuff) disappeared
a couple years ago. Maybe some rural location still uses it, but
for the most part, the urban centers are now all digital.
On digital, you have OTA (sent by weak transmitters), or cable digital.
The weakest OTA (digital) transmitter in town, is 3kW, and I can't
receive it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsc <--- broadcast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/256-QAM <--- cable info, QAM flavor
The digital TV sends video as packets of already-compressed data.
Some flavor of MPEG is what comes right out of the tuner, after
recovery. On the older analog tuners, the tuner chip needed
ADCs for chroma and luma, the output might be 20-30MB/sec. And
there was an added expense, to compress to MPEG and make the data
rate more reasonable. Some of the USB tuners, had some flavor of MPEG
compression. But with digital tuning, they can skip a step, and
the MPEG could be written to disk as is. Later, when you want to
view it, it needs to be decompressed. You wouldn't really want to
save in uncompressed format, as it uses too much disk (I have some
RGB24 recordings here, which are about 125GB/hour of TV). Video
compression can achieve 100:1 compression or so, so you can reduce
storage requirements quite a bit, if staying in a compressed storage
format. Digital TV needed this, to help fit the data stream, into
the available channel width. (On cable, I think by skimping, they
can put four channels where one channel used to go. On OTA broadcast,
many times they just put a single channel in a slot.)
*******
Intel has officially given up on PCI. Modern Intel chipsets lack PCI.
The motherboard makers, may use a bridge chip, to add PCI slots
back into a motherboard. So the situation is easily remedied. The
motherboard companies do this, until they perceive the demand is
gone. Some day, PCI will disappear just like ISA did.
PCI Express card selection is still limited. There are going to be
some things, that for either cost or function, you might like a
PCI version. One company has been making bridged cards, using old PCI
chips, sticking a PCI to PCI Express bridge on the back of the card,
and that's how they solve the lack of certain functions. But they
don't sell very many, because customers are price sensitive on
add-on cards. And the bridge chips aren't free.
For tuning, if all you needed was RF input, you can get USB
dongles. The PCI Express card format comes in handy, if you need
multiple connectors on the faceplate. If the card has both
analog capture (like composite or S-Video), as well as an RF
input for OTA or cable digital, then the faceplate on the card
has the room for it. The smallest format of USB dongle, there
is only room for one connector, so the function options are
limited (no capture from a VCR perhaps).
They also make set top format USB boxes, with more connectors
on them. But that might be more for capture, than tuning.
In any case, use the reviews, and you'll spot the stuff that
is dog crap. There are some USB dongles, that used to overheat,
and the output quality may suffer in that case. Or, the product
may die before its time. And the reviews will tell you all about
it. Plenty of stuff runs hotter than it should - my set top
broadcast tuner box runs warmer than it should.
*******
That Sabrent card is analog (NTSC). No digital reception on that one.
That card is for connecting to the back of the VCR, picking up
composite plus stereo audio, or S-Video plus stereo audio, and
capturing old VCR tapes. The tuner on the card (depending on your
country), might not get any usage at all. You have to know your
local TV standards pretty well, to make a successful purchase.
(Newegg used to warn on some of the product pages, that the
tuner was unsuited to current US TV standards.)
The Sabrent card is only keyed for one PCI slot voltage, not two.
I expect that's the 5V slot, seen on the card edge. If you had
one of the Macintoshes with 3.3V only slots, that card would
jam when you tried to fit it. I think all my PCs here are 5V keyed,
so the tuner would work.
Many PCI card makers, use an onboard regulator, and cut
both slots, to indicate the card will work in any PCI slot.
And occasionally, you'll see 3.3V only cards too - but usually
the functional description will be indicating it was never
intended for your average desktop PC.
The Sabrent card, is second down on the left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCI_Keying.png
*******
Is it hard picking something out ? Yes. You have plenty
of research to do, either that, or deep pockets to pay for
returning stuff that isn't what you need.
Have fun,
Paul
I know I also asked about PCI, but it is pretty easy to tell