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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, April 27, 2004

ADVICE
Tuner/PVR card brings TV to computer

By Kim Komando
Gannett News Service

Like to watch TV? Can't live without e-mail? By adding one of the hottest new gadgets to your computer, you can watch television and work simultaneously.

They're called TV tuner/ Personal Video Recording (PVR) cards. Once installed, you can watch TV from the comfort of your computer chair. Using the PVR, you can record programs on the computer's hard drive.

Unlike TiVo or other similar television recording services, there is no monthly subscription fee. Plus, storage capacity is limited only by the size of your hard drive. If you need more storage, simply add another hard drive. Or you can save favorite shows on DVDs.

All cards compress video. That's necessary, because uncompressed video creates monstrous files. One hour of video will consume up to 2 gigabytes, depending on the level of compression.

There are numerous manufacturers of tuner/PVR cards. Prices range from under $100 to several hundred dollars, depending on features. I recently took a look at cards from two popular manufacturers, ATI and Hauppauge.

Both allow you to hook up cable TV directly to your computer. You can watch television full-screen or shrink the window so you can work on other applications. I have a cable modem, so I installed a $10 splitter which sends signals to the modem and the computer.

Preview the channels

TV Wonder Pro with Remote Control from ATI (www.ati.com; $99) runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. Your computer should have at least a Pentium II (or equivalent) processor, and an open PCI slot. The card also will import home movies, but will not export them.

One handy feature is the ability to see all available channels as thumbnails. They are stills, which are updated every few seconds. For example, you can quickly tell that there's a basketball game on channel 26 and the news on channel 87. I found it much easier than looking at a grid for 100 channels.

WinTV-PVR 350 from Hauppauge Digital (hauppauge.com; $199) runs on Windows 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP. You'll need at least a Pentium II 500Mhz (or equivalent) processor and an open PCI slot.

The WinTV-PVR 350 allows you to freeze a program, review what you just saw, then pick it up again.

I also liked TitanTV, a free online guide. If you see a program you want to record, click the red circle next to the program. It automatically schedules the recording session.

Hauppauge's card also imports and exports video from outside sources. Hook up your VCR or video camera to input and edit home movies.

Other options

Laptop owners — and those afraid to open their computers — have other choices. There are Universal Serial Bus models available from Hauppauge, AVerMedia (aver.com) and Pinnacle (pinnaclesys.com). Most are priced less than $200.

Mac owners have several options. Among them, EyeTV 200 USB from Elgato Systems (www.elgato.com) retails for $199. It requires a USB port and OS X 10.1.5 or later. Formac Studio TVR (formac.com) retails for $299. It requires a FireWire port and Mac OS X.

One caveat: I could not install the ATI TV Wonder Pro on one computer, although it worked fine on another. Much like other computer gadgets, installing a TV tuner requires patience and time.