New to tuners

[Phetar]

Hey, I just built a basic system a few months ago, but I'd like to upgrade the video card (working with onboard GeForce 6150) now that I have the cash. And rather than go out and buy an LCD TV and theatre system, I thought the Radeon X1900 AIW would do the trick and save some $ by watching TV on the PC and get good gaming out of it.

I got a couple questions about it though, mainly what sort of display settings are there?
Can I view TV programming at 1280x1024 res?
How is the quality compared to a 26" LCD TV? I have a good monitor (19" Samsung SyncMaster 930B).
And, is it really as simple as plugging the cable box into the tuner card and installing the software?

Basically, is the Radeon X1900 AIW on the SyncMaster worth it, especially considering this is what I'll be using for all my TV and gaming--or should I just wait and try to get an LCD TV? I'm just trying to figure some things out before I drop $450+ on the AIW.

Yes, I know the initial investment of a 6150 system was a bad one, considering I was thinking about gaming and TV, but i needed a system pronto in December, and only 400 to use for it.

 

[Crashman]

The AIW is better than an LCD TV for use with analog cable. You are speaking of analog cable, no?

The problem with Analog Cable is that it has incredibly low resolution. And the great thing about the X1900 is it's good ability to upscale low resolution video.

 

[MadCraiZ]

If you use a hardware based tv tuner, you can use dsacler and ffdshow to clean up your picture quite a bit. You can't do that with an AIW.

 

[Crashman]

It might be helpful to read some REVIEWS before assuming a quality issue with the AIW cards.