Second TV tuner card

[Hactar]

I built a PVR (PC-TV, HTPC, whatever) around an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 DV card. It can record TV programs (~910 MB/hr), and play back stored programs, but not at the same time. I got a second TV tuner card with the idea that I'd record using it, and play back using the AiW, since ATI's software responds to the RF remote that came with it. This should allow me to record and play independently, and even record two programs at once.

I once got my hands on a second AiW, and apparently ATI's software got confused -- it decoded S-Video etc., but ignored the tuner. For that reason I'm wary of getting an ATI card as my second one.

However, all the TV tuner cards I've seen have a cable from the tuner card to "line in". But "line in" is already taken by the AiW! (The only other input is "microphone".) What can I do -- get a second sound card?

I got a WinTV-Go (before I found out it was mono; don't worry, I'm taking it back), and it recorded the video from whatever channel it was tuned to, and the audio from whatever the AiW was tuned to.

How about USB tuners? Are they any good? Can USB cope with MPEG2 (~260+ KB/s) or uncompressed video if no onboard encoder (~88 MB/s, assuming 10-bit depth, 640x480, 30 fps)? Are there tuners that send audio through the PCI bus?

Thanks.

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-eben
This message was created using recycled electrons.

 

[Crashman]

The AIW should also have an internal sound header that you can connect instead to your Auxiliary Input on your sound card (AUX), which is the same type as the CD-Input but controled separately.

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[Hactar]

> The AIW should also have an internal sound header that
> you can connect instead to your Auxiliary Input on your
> sound card (AUX), which is the same type as the CD-Input
> but controled separately.

Noted. Thanks. A poster in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video recommended that instead of getting a second tuner card (which would bring on Driver Hell), I try "Beyond TV" from http://www.snapstream.com/ , as it allows playing and recording at the same time. It's $60, about as much as an inexpensive tuner card. I'm doing the 21-day trial right now. If it has nasty bugs, then I'll probably do Driver Hell.


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-eben
This message was created using recycled electrons.