Do USB TV tuners work with any laptop?

What exactly do you need to watch TV on a laptop?? I'm really looking into the dell inspiron E1405 and I would like to be able to watch TV through the laptop. I would actually watch it on a separate monitor that I plan on hooking up to the laptop.

So what exactly do I need for this to work? I assume there is no way to put a TV tuner card in the laptop, as there are no options while "customizing" the laptop through dell's site. So I assume I need to get a USB one, but I have no idea what I need to look for.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

Well, there are some options. You will need a TV Tuner - either Express Card or USB (preferably 2.0). Then, you can just connect the monitor to your computer, extend the desktop, and you now have TV on your computer, on the spare monitor. Someone else will probably have recommendations for you about which TV Tuner.

 

Awesome, well like I said I'm thinking its going to need to be USB 2.0 (though I might be wrong, I really don't know much about this stuff). I also plan on upgrading the windows vista to premium( I think) so I can have Windows Media Center.

Guess I'll just wait for some recommendations now, thanks.

 

yes, usb tv tuners do work and theres quite a variety of external tuners available for your laptop.
All of them have their own drivers and viewer softwear. Most are the size of an external HD and some like the ATi USB tv Tuner is much smaller. They even come in sizes as small as just a usb stick.
Most of them get pretty warm when in use so im not sure how the usb stick tuner would fare.

They are fairly simple to install. All u need is a coaxle cable that connects to the tuner and the tuner connects via usb to ur laptop.

 

A slingbox is great.

But you need at least 256kb upload to have good quality.