Your nearest
electronics paradise should offer you plenty of options, but if you want to see the full
range of what??™s available, visit one of the major retailers on the Web??”for example,
Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) or CDW (www.cdw.com).
Your first decision when buying a TV tuner is which connection type to use:
In many cases, the best type of TV tuner is one that connects via USB, because
you can quickly and easily disconnect it from one PC and connect it to
another.
For a desktop PC, the alternative to USB is to insert a PCI TV card in a PCI
slot on the motherboard. This involves opening your PC??™s case, but, assuming
you install the card successfully, you shouldn??™t need to open the case
again. Having the card inside the case like this makes for a neat solution, as
you don??™t have the USB device outside the PC??™s case.
For a laptop PC, the alternative to USB is to use a PC Card or ExpressCard
TV Card. However, given that most laptops have far more USB ports than PC
Card or ExpressCard slots, and given that there is a far wider choice of USB
TV devices, USB is usually a better choice.
Apart from the connection type, the following are the main considerations when
you??™re choosing among TV cards:
How many tuners do you need? The most basic tuners come with a single
TV tuner, letting you watch or record a single channel at a time, or record
a show on one channel while playing back a show you??™ve recorded earlier.
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