Best TV Tuner? ATi or Leadtek?

[LERobinson]

I have a Radeon 9800XP for my video card so all I need is a TV Tuner.

I see a lot of folks have the TV2000XP from Leadtek but I also have seen some good reviews of the ATi TV Wonder VE and Pro cards. I think I might find ATi's GuidePlus+ a nice feature, but then again I am not sure if the Leadtek card has something simular.

Can anyone provide opin or insight?

[no1_vern]

Hi, LERobinson,

Welcome to TechIMO!

I have had very good results with the ATI cards, and have heard of problems with the Leadtek TV2000XP cards(color changed, errors, etc...) I suggest that you go with an ATI card. Also you should make sure you are getting a < PCI > TV Tuner card as some come in AGP and your slot is already used by the 9800 because the seller/store doesnt always note it.

[LERobinson]

Thanks for the welcome and the information no1_vern.

I have read elsewhere that some of the ATi drivers can be a problem though. It would seem from your post that your experience would indicate otherwise. Would that be a true assessment? And thanks for the reminder on the PCI vs. AGP.

BTW, I am running Windows XP Pro with an AMD 2500XP (Barton) oc'd to 2800. I am assuming that these along with 1GB of DDR RAM will be sufficient for good performance from a tuner?

[sharder8]

I use the ATI All-in-Blunder TV tuner card and the drivers stunk!!

However, once I loaded Cyberlink's PowerVCRII, I was surprised to discover that ATI's drivers had been replaced. The end result was =/> picture than on my TV and outstanding audio. ''

It just goes to prove that you can have good hardware, but if you have poor software to go with it, you still have crap.

Harder

[smapdi]

I have a TV Wonder VE card and the drivers are bad bad bad. I've heard mixed reviews of the new TV Wonder Pro card. I would actually get a Happauge card instead or do like shader8 and get diff drivers. I don't know much about LeadTek's card so I won't comment on it. If you really wanna know more about the ATI line of TV capture cards and ppl's problems with them, check out the forums at www.rage3d.com .

[LERobinson]

Thanks for the comments! I am not too surprised by the ATi driver comments. Their drivers were one of the big reasons ATi could never compete with nVidia. They finally got their act together with their Radeon cards but I am betting that they are still using skunk drivers for their TV tuners.

Smapdi, which Happauge card would you recommend? Don't want to spend more that $70 for one.

[ben-the-slacker]

I got TV Wonder VE and it works great for me. Although it doesn't have stereo sound, picture quality is very good. Drivers (if you get em from ATI's website) work just fine.

[samwichse]

I'm the proud owner of one of the Leadtek TV 2000XP cards.

I have to say, this thing rocks. I've installed it in both Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 without a single problem, just it in and ran the install CD. I've never actually had the tuner program freeze up, and the remote control (possibly the best feature) works flawlessly. Not only that but picture quality is better than a standard TV IMO, and it does time shifting (pause live TV).

Also, if you're into Linux, there's an excellent piece on using it right here. It's also got instructions for the FM features and using the remote with lirc.

Sam

[woodbutcher]

Check out the customer reviews / comments at Newegg

I have a couple of these cards, well worth the $48.00

Thanks for the heads up on Linux compatability samwichse.
Yet another reason to defect to the "kernels" camp

WB

[LERobinson]

I have looked at the Newegg reviews/comments and there are obviously more on the Leadtek than the TV Wonder Pro. But both seem to indicate about the same level of satisfaction and/or driver problems. What I keep going back to is the integrated programming guide that ATi has that Leadtek does not appear to have. Is the program something that I would miss if I bought the Leadtek? Or is there a better way (website etc.) to look at TV listings for my area?

LR