Does anyone have the tuner for the i9300?

I'm about to buy an i9300, and the remote and tuner option sounds cool...but Dell gives such a bad explaination as to what it does that I'm confused.

Is the tuner an external box, like what comes with an HP ZD8000? Or what is it? I can't find a picture or review of it anywhere. CNet talks about it, but doesn't really explain what it does and what the I/O is on it. Does it give rca video and audio outs to hook up to your stereo and tv, and then just a USB 2.0 port on the tuner to connect to the computer?

If someone has this, any way you could post or send me a picture of it?

Also the big complaint about the monitor aliasing and text being hard to read has me a bit confused. Is this on both of the types of lcd you can buy, or is this complaint limited to the lower or higher end lcd?

Finally, I upgraded to the 2.0GHz processor. I'm going to be doing business and gaming stuff mainly. Is this worth it, or should I go back to the 1.76GHz Processor?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Wow, I just spent 25 minutes on dell chat trying to determine exactly what the hell the tv tuner is/does...and they could not tell me. AHHH

I had 3 questions for them, and they could only answer one!

Can someone at least tell me if these ports are a breakout box, or are they something internal on the computer if you add this option.

What I'd really like to be able to do is record tv shows and play them back on my tv. The HP ZD8000 breakout box is perfect for that. That's what I was hoping this would be.

 

from pc mag review

first hit on google

 

Thanks for the reply. I actually had read that review. Then I chatted with Dell sales, and they confused the issue for me. They made it sound like it adds ports to the computer now. What ports they, or the a/v box adds (if it's external) they didn't know. They knew it added an coax input (or at least that's what they said at first) and then they said it had s-video in and 4pin din, which is the same thing as s-video. They didn't know if it had outputs or not. They couldn't even tell me what the manufacturer was, or what the part number was so I could look it up online.

So now I'm just really confused as to what this thing/option is. The description on the dell site leaves everything to be desired. Am I the only person in the world interested in this option?

 

And to be clear, I asked them if it was an external breakout box, or internal ports, and the guy said he didn't know, and there was no info available on it.

 

Here's maybe a better question; is there a breakout box that I can buy 3rd party that will give me access to the dvr features in the Dell, and allow me to play back the video and sound on my tv via either coax or rca?

 

its external and connects to the usb port. i didnt get it just because of that... and a 2.0 or a 1.76, there isnt that much difference, unless you doing a lot of non graphic calculations. For games not much of a difference is noticible. The big this is the graphics card and ram and the hard drive speed. get the go 6800, 1GB ram, and a 7200 rpm hard drive.

 

If you don't feel like spending the cash to get the Tuner from Dell, ATI has a nice USB 2.0 tuner, can be had for around $60.