# TitanTV and TV Tuner Cards.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 21, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331 "2004-10-21T02:46:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331/1 "2004-10-21T02:46:42Z")

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I stumbled across [TitanTV](http://www.titantv.com) by chance tonight and am really curious about how this works and how it can work for me 😃 I’m assuming it’d be just like TiVo but it’d go directly to my computer instead.

It looks like I need to get a TV Tuner Card, so I’d need one compatible with my system. Any ideas?

> [@](#):
>
> Your PC has:  
> Processor: Intel Pentium 4 1495MHz  
> Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 100/200  
> Memory: 1024MB  
> Free Disk Space: 65.71GB  
> Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP
> 
> Cable Internet/Digital Cable TV from Comcast.

Anybody else using this?

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**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331/2 "2004-10-21T03:07:11Z")

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I believe the best analog ones use a 10 bit connextant(or was it phillips? ) decoder chip. Then theres HD t.v ones. They’re much better, but also expensive.

I’m not sure your 1.5ghz p4 can handle on the fly mpeg 4 encoding. (highest/dvd quality). I haven’t used my t.v card in over a year and I don’t remember if I was running an 800 duron of a 2000+ xp at the time, but encoding in mpeg 4 romped all over my cpu. It also takes up alot of HD space, but with the price of modern Harddrives it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Another thing, older analog cards are 640x480 max(limited by analog t.v signal). When upscaled to the size of your screen it’s watchable, good even but not great. A Hd t.v card should output to your monitor quite nicely.

Oh, and one last thing. Theres free software outthere that’ll do your tivo functions for free.

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**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331/3 "2004-10-21T03:34:37Z")

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So do I just get one of these TV Tuner cards, install it, and then just plug the coax cable into it?

The resolution isn’t that big of a deal for me (I ordered digital cable for the music channels more than any quality issues).

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**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titantv-and-tv-tuner-cards/270331/4 "2004-10-21T03:50:17Z")

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Yea, pretty much. Finding good software is a pain though.