I was told that a tv card installed in a computer (internal) could cause damage via overheating and shorten the life of the computer overall. Does anyone have any information about adverse effects of TV Cards? (I have an ATI TV Wonder if it makes any difference).
Thanks,
Eric
Welcome to the Straight Dope!
A properly functioning TV Card should cause no problems with your equipment. There are FCC regulations governing what kind of intereference they can generate. I have an early model TV Card. It still works great and this is the second computer in which it’s been installed. (The last computer just got too old and slow). I’ve never had problems with it. However, if your coax cable has some extra voltage running around on it, that could damage the equipment. I bought a filter at a local electronics store. Some surge protectors have coax adapters as well. It’s worth the effort.
If whoever told you that was claiming it to be true as general point for all TV cards then they’re full of opinions and not much else. Properly designed TV cards generally work fine and do not cause overheating problems (it’s just an RF tuner on card!) and usually run cooler than the video cards. However, they do use an IRQ and some separate video card / TV card combos can conflict so it’s usually best/safest to get a combo video/TV on one card (like the ATI) if possible.