A good cheap hdtv tuner

I have both an ATI HDTV and a NVidia Dual Tuner - I've never had an issue with either one. If it's a reception issue, it's usually the antenna and not the card.
 
I did some research on this myself and almost a year ago I decided to go with DVICO. They offer a few options in HDTV tuners including USB HDTV tuners (which I own) and work pretty well.

Unlike the ATI which has only NTSC/ATSC tuners. The DVICO has a QAM tuner in addition to NTSC/ATSC which was EXTREMELY appealing to me. Now I dont need an antenna to receive local HD. AWESOME.

The downside is, is that its single coax but not a HUGE deal. Because DVICO's software supports multi tuners for PIP and dual recording. The only problems I have with DVICO's software is with Vista. I cannot, CANNOT, get timeslip to work properly with Vista. Its a great feature NOT to have but a small flaw to have HD. On XP I rarely had a problem with it.

I've used ATI tuners in the Past and I thought they were the biggest peice of crap.

DVICO is a bit more expensive than most but I think its well worth the money for stunning picture in HD that rarely skips a beat.

My rating
XP: 5/5
Vista: 4/5
 
I bought a TwinHan 32500 (also known as the 3250) ATSC/NTSC tuner from 3btech for $40 shipped! It was identified by Vista right away and the timeslip seems to be working great! I doesn't have QAM, but it is cheap!
 
I would try one of the VideoMate series of TV tuners from ComproUSA. I've had a Compro TV tuner and an ATI TV tuner and IMO the picture from the Compro was much better. OTOH, the software from ATI was a bit slicker and advanced when compared to the Compro but I went for picture quality.

SP
 
The AverMedia AverHDTV A180 is a very fine product. I have two, and both installed without issue and have worked flawlessly.

It seems the current street price is about 75 dollars.

Note that it does not include a SD tuner; in other words, its only an HD tuner.