Newegg has the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual TV Tuner 1229 for $95 - $15 rebate [Exp 10/10] = $80 with free shipping. This dual tuner card from Hauppauge lets you watch and record two different TV channels, and it doesn't matter if they're digital or analog.
Not as practical as they used to be now that many cable companies use encrypted digital signals. You can use a cable box with this which is fine but now you have limitations. If your cable company uses encrypted digital signals you will be better off using a tuner card that uses a cable card.
Yes, over the air is all digital but some people still have unencrypted analog cable for now. My point is the cable company encryption makes these less practical. A few years ago you could DVR with this type of TV tuner and have Media Center change channels and record according to your recording schedule set on your PC. Now if using this TV tuner, because of encryption, you need to use a cable box and continuously remember to set the cable box to the correct station before each recording takes place. If you use a TV tuner card like Ceton that uses a cable company cable card you can use your PC's recording schedule to automatically change the stations before a recording starts and you can also record several stations at once. Of course cable card TV tuners cost more but they are worth it if you use it on a regular basis.
Recording on two channels with this TV tuner requires you to have unencrypted signals or two cable boxes to decrypt the two channels.
I've got one of these in my desktop computer. It works well with Windows Media Center. I have an antennae to pick up local over-the-air digital channels and my local cable provider has analog channels 2-70 but not all cable channels and no premium channels. I use it like a dvr. My video card has two digital outputs and I have a two monitor setup. It works great. I have news on as I type this...
^I had the same setup you describe in my PC not that long ago. It's a very nice setup if your on a budget. What I didn't like was the lousy picture resulting from upconverting Standard Definition (SD) analog onto a High Definition (HD) monitor. The local over-the-air digital channels were broadcast in digital HD (unencrypted) and looked great. All of the other "standard cable" package channels (2-70) were analog and looked grainy no matter what I set the screen resolution at.
Now I have a Ceton TV tuner card with 4 channel "cable card" inside it. The Ceton has 4 channels so I can stream channels to other devises (laptops, PC's, ...) and have four other TV's in my house playing different TV channels at once. It's an inexpensive (no renting boxes from cable company) way to have multiple TV's cable ready if you already have a few old PC's or laptops around as I do. You don't need TV tuners in these receiving devises only free software provided by Ceton. I also upgraded to HD digital cable for all my channels...sweet. So now I have two analog boxes (free from cable company) and a 4 channel HD cable card $10 a month bundled with high speed Internet for less than $100 a month which I feel is reasonable. That's a total of 6 TV's cable ready four of which are HD. Phone is free through Ooma.
Not as practical as they used to be now that many cable companies use encrypted digital signals. You can use a cable box with this which is fine but now you have limitations. If your cable company uses encrypted digital signals you will be better off using a tuner card that uses a cable card.
all signals are digital so why the analog?
Yes, over the air is all digital but some people still have unencrypted analog cable for now. My point is the cable company encryption makes these less practical. A few years ago you could DVR with this type of TV tuner and have Media Center change channels and record according to your recording schedule set on your PC. Now if using this TV tuner, because of encryption, you need to use a cable box and continuously remember to set the cable box to the correct station before each recording takes place. If you use a TV tuner card like Ceton that uses a cable company cable card you can use your PC's recording schedule to automatically change the stations before a recording starts and you can also record several stations at once. Of course cable card TV tuners cost more but they are worth it if you use it on a regular basis.
Recording on two channels with this TV tuner requires you to have unencrypted signals or two cable boxes to decrypt the two channels.
Analog because it was designed before everything went digital, and it is handy to get something off an old VCR or other analog source.
I've got one of these in my desktop computer. It works well with Windows Media Center. I have an antennae to pick up local over-the-air digital channels and my local cable provider has analog channels 2-70 but not all cable channels and no premium channels. I use it like a dvr. My video card has two digital outputs and I have a two monitor setup. It works great. I have news on as I type this...
^I had the same setup you describe in my PC not that long ago. It's a very nice setup if your on a budget. What I didn't like was the lousy picture resulting from upconverting Standard Definition (SD) analog onto a High Definition (HD) monitor. The local over-the-air digital channels were broadcast in digital HD (unencrypted) and looked great. All of the other "standard cable" package channels (2-70) were analog and looked grainy no matter what I set the screen resolution at.
Now I have a Ceton TV tuner card with 4 channel "cable card" inside it. The Ceton has 4 channels so I can stream channels to other devises (laptops, PC's, ...) and have four other TV's in my house playing different TV channels at once. It's an inexpensive (no renting boxes from cable company) way to have multiple TV's cable ready if you already have a few old PC's or laptops around as I do. You don't need TV tuners in these receiving devises only free software provided by Ceton. I also upgraded to HD digital cable for all my channels...sweet. So now I have two analog boxes (free from cable company) and a 4 channel HD cable card $10 a month bundled with high speed Internet for less than $100 a month which I feel is reasonable. That's a total of 6 TV's cable ready four of which are HD. Phone is free through Ooma.