TV tuners permit computers to receive television signals. Some of these devices also permit users to record television programs on the computer’s hard disk. You can find various types of TV tuners on the market depending on your preferences.
Laptop users may choose between hardware- or software-based TV tuners. The hardware-based solution TV tuner uses an external PCTV card in the form of a USB device that costs a few hundred dollars. TV tuner cards will allow you to watch more than 100 high-quality TV channels on television, or rent online movies. Most will have remote controls, and there are those with Media Center that allows surfing through TV channels. These cards and their accompanying software have the endorsements of being easy to install, but check on software compatibility and whether you the proper driver. Microsoft has a guide for finding these TV tuner cards.
TV tuner cards could be external or internal. Most high-end laptops have inbuilt TV tuner cards, which are best for watching TV. But if your laptop has no inbuilt TV tuner, you could get an external TV tuner card. The external TV turner card is preferable particularly because laptops are hard to reconfigure. One thing to consider when buying an external TV tuner card is the number of channels that it supports, the frame rates it supports and the sound quality it produces.
The software-based TV tuner uses software that is also known as satellite TV software. Before deciding which solution to choose however, you must ensure that your laptop’s operating system supports it. This would not be a problem if you have Windows XP on a new machine.
Both types of TV tuners work well with laptop computers but they differ in cost, number of channels accessed, and portability. Purchase of both solutions is one-time but the software-based TV tuner costs more than the hardware based solution. However, in terms of channel accessibility, a standard package of the software-based solution can stream thousands of channels worldwide. While the hardware-based solution can only stream hundreds of live television channels.
Laptop users can benefit more from using the software-based TV tuner in terms of portability since users can choose to stream television channels using either wired or wireless broadband connections. The hardware-based TV tuner on the other hand, can only stream television channels using a wired broadband connection. Thus, the software-based solution works best with laptops since it allows users to watch their favorite television shows from anywhere in the world.
While both hardware and software-based TV tuners require only one-time payment, the latter is cheaper and offers more channels on a standard package. For example, Satellite TV for PC’s PC TV tuner 2007elite sells at a one-time life membership cost of $49.95, while offering more than 3000 channels. There are also sites in the Net offering TV tuner software downloads.
To make sure you get the best of what you will be buying, look for Tuner TV software sites in the Internet that list the featured country TV stations. Choose a package that have a good balance of channels in English and foreign language.
