Pinnacle PCTV High Definition PCI Tuner Card $49.99 +SH at Woot

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Pinnacle PCTV HD Card
$49.99 + $5 shipping

www.woot.com

Features:

* Watch SD and free HD TV on your PC, no service fees
* Includes remote control and FM antenna
* 3-in-1 tuner card for digital (ATSC), analog (NTSC) and FM radio
* Hardware ready for ClearQAM (unencrypted digital cable) reception
* Automatically record shows to your hard drive in your choice of formats (DivX, MPEG2 etc)
* Capture from your cable/satellite set-top box with the included a/v cable
* Turns your PC into a personal video recorder (PVR) with time-shifting, pause and rewind live TV
* Trim your videos with Pinnacle Quick Start
* Fully compatible with Windows Media Center (windows Vista and XP MCE)
* Certified for Microsoft Vista

TV Standards

* ATSC (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV)
* NTSC (cable, over the air)

Inputs

* TV antenna input (F-connector/Coaxial)
* FM antenna input
* S-Video, Composite Video (RCA), Stereo Audio (2 x RCA)

Recording Formats

* MPEG-1/2
* DivX®

System Requirements:

* Windows Vista™ (32-bit) or Windows® XP with SP2
* Intel® Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz, Pentium M 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 64 processor (for HDTV reception, a Pentium 4 2.8GHz or Pentium M 1.7 GHz or equivalent AMD Athlon 64 processor is recommended)
* RAM: Windows XP – 256MB (512MB recommended); for Windows Vista – 512 MB (1GB recommended)
* Free PCI rev. 2.3 slot
* Sound / graphics controller with support for DirectX® 9
* Hard drive with minimum 1 GB free space (20 GB recommended for TV recording)
* CD or DVD drive
* High-gain indoor or rooftop aerial and/or connection to an existing cable TV jack (coaxial cable)

In the box:

* PCTV HD PCI card
* FM antenna
* PCTV installation CD
* Pinnacle Studio Quickstart CD
* Mini Remote control w/batteries
* Quick start guide
* A/V input adaptor
 
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No, I wasn't being sarcastic. Is this a good price for a card like this? And is a PCI rev. 2.3 slot something new, or is my motherboard likely to have it?
 
just so you know this a software encoding card and not a hardware encoding card (which is the reason its got a lower price).. maybe not a big deal to some but it's what stopped me from buying it.. other then that though it looks like a pretty good card...
 
[quote name='hype88']just so you know this a software encoding card and not a hardware encoding card (which is the reason its got a lower price).. maybe not a big deal to some but it's what stopped me from buying it.. other then that though it looks like a pretty good card...[/QUOTE]
whats the big difference?
 
[quote name='M1C13']whats the big difference?[/QUOTE]

software encoding means that your cpu does all of the work and can slow down your computer from performing other tasks... hardware encoding means that the tuner card itself is dedicated to doing the work. cards with hardware encoding are more expensive for that reason
 
Software encoding = CPU does all the work = hotter temp = faster fan RPM = loud(er). Software encoders are not particularly recommended for living room use.

Just throwing that out there. This card will work with Mythtv.

EDIT: Not entirely sure about the Mythtv support. Thought I saw a yes, but I'm not seeing it on the hardware list. Still looking.

EDIT2: Not on the list of used cards at the PVR Hardware Database, though that's not definite. There's a thread open at Gossamer right now asking whether it works with Mythtv. Would check there for confirmation if and when it comes.
 
[quote name='iamthekiller']software encoding means that your cpu does all of the work and can slow down your computer from performing other tasks... hardware encoding means that the tuner card itself is dedicated to doing the work. cards with hardware encoding are more expensive for that reason[/quote]

I had a software encoding card before. It did a good job if you weren't doing anything else. For example, since it shares the CPU, I would sometimes getting glitches and stutters in my recordings when I played video games at the same time!
 
It's a Woot Launch item so this is probably the first time it's been on sale-- so any answers you get may or may not be definitive.
 
[quote name='hollowfreak']... if only it had component, hdmi & toslink in.[/quote]

Not going to happen for this side of $1000.
 
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