Capture Card | TV Tuner

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

I currently have a cheap-o PCI capture card that doubles as a TV tuner. The thing only cost me about thirty bucks, and I knew it was going to be fairly crappy; but it was all I needed at the time.

Now, however, I'm building an HTPC (as indicated in the 'My Refined HTPC Build' thread), and I want a fairly decent, low-profile PCI-E card that can to the following:

• Capture Component input (the yellow video cable). Sound will be handled by the onboard sound, or more probable, a sound card.
• Properly tune into Rogers Cable. I'm still on analog, I'll worry about the switchover to digital when the time comes. My current card displays snow artifacting in all channels (meanwhile a direct connection to my TV works fine, so it's not the cable). I want something that can keep the cable input in it's highest quality.

All suggestions very much appreciated :)

By the way, through standard Component, what is the resolution Component broadcasts at? I know it's not as high as Composite, but I'm pretty sure Component doesn't broadcast max at 320 x 240, which is what my capture card software captures raw AVI input as. (actually, i can use the MPEG-2 encoding at 640 x 480, but the recorded file has highly noticeable compression artifacts).

Or is this problem merely caused by the severely limiting 133MB/s bandwidth of the PCI slot? I know that raw AVI files at 320 x 240 go about 26GB an hour, so I think that's why. Not sure though.

:)

How mine is setup as follows.
Cable splitter on the wall
One cable for the digibox or TV if you don't dont have a topset box.
One cable for the HTPC

Allows you to record and watch tv at the same time. So if you are recording something but wanna watch something else you can... ergo you cant.

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

Oh, and as I've realized, it needs to be low-profile; the Antec Minuet case I'll be stuffing it into only features Half-Size expansion slots.

[MacJunky]

Originally Posted by Mr. Gruntsworthy

Capture Component input (the yellow video cable). Sound will be handled by the onboard sound, or more probable, a sound card.
By the way, through standard Component, what is the resolution Component broadcasts at? I know it's not as high as Composite, but I'm pretty sure Component doesn't broadcast max at 320 x 240, which is what my capture card software captures raw AVI input as. (actually, i can use the MPEG-2 encoding at 640 x 480, but the recorded file has highly noticeable compression artifacts).

You have them mixed up, composite is the single yellow cable while component is three separate ones.

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

oops! lol