I'm looking for a good TV tuner card for my new computer, preferrably one that comes with a remote control and can support fullscreen resolution (but fullscreen isn't necessary). I looked through newegg, but there is such a large range in price (anywhere from $30 to $150USD) that I have no idea what is a good price to pay. I don't want to pay more than I have to if I can get a card that works just as good for less.

Oh, by the way, the card is meant for a Vista computer, is that going to make a difference?

woot.com

There is a woot off.

Be patient one might come up at a good price.

Hauppauge makes the best tuner cards. I payed around $60 for mine last summer (Hauppauge WinTV 88x series) and it works pretty good for all I need it for. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying really close attention when I bought it, and as it turns out, it's one of the Hauppauge cards that doesn't have really wide third-party program support. Which isn't too big of a deal, because the Hauppauge software is pretty decent.

The other regret I have is that my card doesn't have hardware encoding. This is important if you're trying to record to DivX or XVid, or a number of other codecs on the fly. Even though my computer exceeds the minimum specs to encode to DivX on the processor, every time I've tried it, the audio and video won't sync. I can record to MPEG-1 VCD without trouble though, and transcode it later.

So, get Hauppauge, but make sure to get a card with a hardware encoder. Also, check some third party DVR programs to see what they support before buying. As a final note, RF remotes are nice, but pricey. IR remotes are cheap, but require a clear line of sight to the receiver. The bonus is that my remote works with applications other than just the TV watching/recording software, such as iTunes, WMP, etc.

Hauppauge does NOT make the best cards, and from what I hear their Vista support is touchy at best right now.

Also, hardware encoding only does MPEG2 formats, you can't just pick any codec you want.

However, I would definately recommend a hardware encoder card so you have support for Vista's Media Center.

I have an nVidia DualTV card, and absolutely love it. It's got 2 tuners on the card, so you can record a show while watching another.

They make some of the best, and at many times, their products have dominated the market.

Many cards are similar, because often they use the same or very similar tuners and chipsets. The quality of the audio output can be suspect on cheaper cards though. I have no clue about HDTV though.

Their quality has gone downhill as of late.

do you have Window's Media Center? because my first tv tuner wouldn't work well because it conflicted with media center, so I had to get another one and my brother took the first one.

I've looked around and found this one and this one, they seem reasonably priced and they have what I'm looking for. What does everyone here think about them? My main concern (with any of the TV cards) is that they won't be compatible with vista and I'll have wasted money. :/

Well 1080i support on the Kworld card is certainly enticing. Try googling TV cards and Vista support, maybe there's some info or projected info on compatibility?

Well, some of the reviews say that the cards work in Vista, at least they did in RC1 and other Beta releases. I can't find a whole lot of information about Vista support from Google, but I'm still looking around.

The Hauppauge card has better reviews and seems like it might be more supported, but the Kworld card has the 1080i support.

[EDIT]Looking at the specs for Vista, Ultimate has the Media Center, so that might make things a little easier or a little harder... :\[/EDIT]

Don't even bother getting an HDTV tuner without an onboard encoder, you'll want to kill yourself from the insane CPU usage.

Also, Home Premium has Media Center.

Thanks everyone, I think I'll go with the Hauppauge card, it seems to be the better choice of the two since it has an onboard MPEG2 encoder. It's a little more expensive, but it should be worth it.

Viewing HDTV without a hardware mpeg decoder isn't that bad. As long as you have a CPU that is 2.6Ghz+, you will be fine. However, I know almost all semi-recent ATI cards have mpeg decoding built in. I know my 9600 XT and 9800 do. (Except in linux, damn you ATI!)

Not DECODER, encoder.