question about TV tuner cards
 

Hi all,
I have a question for anyone who has used one of these .

Here is my dilemma. I remodeled my office which means the small TV that was in here is gone due to lack of room. This was no problem until now. Baseball season is couple weeks away and I want to watch the Mariners. I figured they were going to suck so I wouldn't care, but then they brought Griffey back so now I am interested again.

So I thought I would try one of these TV tuner cards or I see they also sell a device that allows you to hook your cable to your computer via a usb card.

My question is when you watch TV can you do this in a smaller window while still working? I want to be able to work, but want to have a small window open where I can watch the game as well.

Anyone ever used one of these things? Are they worth giving a shot?

Thanks in advance.

They use up a lot of processor resources.. Could lag your computer..

www.tigerdirect.com
www.newegg.com

sell a bunch read the reviews..

Why don't you just buy a flat panel for your wall? You can get a small one for $250.

If you want to watch basbeball on your computer may I suggest MLB.tv The premium package is $110 for the entire season and you'd be paying that much for a tuner card anyways.

http://mlb.tv

I have one downstairs and use it quite a bit. But like Ozarkz said they can be CPU intensive especially when recording ect...

You can watch it in a small window or hook up another monitor and watch it on that one, its really up to you.

Be aware that if you plan on using the remote, that your cable system will need to be compatible for the remote to work correctly

I've got a usb one. A little bit bigger than a usb memory stick. Dual HD twin tuner works beautifully. And yes you can have a resizeable window any size you want.

That is my other option. The way I have things set up now I could mount it over my monitor and watch it that way, or I would have to put it on the wall behind me and just listen and turn around when I wanted to watch.

I may end up going this route. I was just looking at these TV tuner cards and USB devices and thought I would see if anyone had used them to get some ideas before I make a decision. I have about 10 days until opening day to figure something out.

Cool.,I think if I get one I will go with the USB version it just seems like it will be less hassle than installing a new card.

thanks for the input.

I read a handful of reviews and saw that some say they are resource intense. I have quad core with 8 gig or memory so I think I will be okay, but it would annoy me if it bogged the system down.

Thanks

I heard from a few people that they work pretty well.

Be careful of the MLB subscription mentioned. Unless they changed it, you can't watch your own home games which seems totally stupid. Meaning I'm in Chicago and I can't watch Cubs games with it. Sort of defeats the purpose if you ask me. But this was last year, they may have changed it.

I looked into that. There may be some blackout issues (the support people at that service told me the don't know what games might be blacked out.) I know Fox Sports Northwest broadcasts all the game so with a tuner card I don't have to worry about possible blackouts. Although there may be no blackouts with the MLB.tv service either.

You should be fine, just dont record some 2 hour HD movie and play COD4 at the same time or something.

Yeah I wrote and asked them about blackouts when I first started looking into that and their response was that they didn't know what games would be blacked out. I do live within the "blackout" area so I could get screwed with it.

Nope. I'm actually not planning to record anything with it. I just want to see Griffey swing the bat :)

I would NOT go with an usb card because they normally dont have internal processors and let your cpu handle the load, however most internal cards that I know of do this themselves. I would check out "hauppuages" products. And resizeable - I dont think you will find one without that function.

You should be running dual monitors.

It's worth trying out because you can just return it.

Like ChupaChups said read the specs and reviews to see how much the card actually processes...

www.ocforums.com is a great forum for computer hardware help..

They have blackout rules still. I checked and Mariners games are subject to blackout rules in Portland. The games are archived 45 minutes after they end and he could watch them that way.

I'm doing this exact thing except running it through DirecTV rather than cable but it will work the same way. I bought a PCI TV Tuner card from NewEgg. Brand was Happauge or something similar. I can set it up as a DVR as well.

Ah, I didn't know they archived the games. That is a pretty cool feature.

Dual monitors has been an idea I have been kicking around for a while now. I might give it a try. I have space issue that could cause me problem though.

I've been reading some reviews and it seems like this brand is pretty highly rated across the board. Thanks for the info on the USB vs Card. That is something to keep in mind for sure.

blackout games
 

The reason they 'don't know' which games will be blacked out is because it's based on the ticket sales in the home market.

If they don't sell enough tickets in the local market then the game is blacked out for that area. The bottom line is, that if your local team is in a slump, most of your games will be blacked out, unless your local fan base is just nuts for the team.

the last 2 or 3 pcs I've bought from tiger direct came with tv tuners and xp media edition and it's cool to be able to watch tv on your pc and mine was like a DVR also. here is a link to it and the remote is nice also

Actually for MLB Extra Innings and such it doesn't matter how many tickets are sold etc. It's all based on your regional team. The reason it is blacked out online at MLB.TV is because they can turn on the tv and watch the game on their local channel. Like myself, I'm blacked out if I try to watch a Rockies game on the tv on say channel 700 something with MLB Extra Innings, but I can switch over to the local channel and watch it.

Other sports like NFL Football etc use the ticket sales to blackout but baseball is more regional / local based since the games are usually on a local channel.