E1505, Expresscard TV Tuner with Digital over the air?

Hey was finally trying to see if there is anything WORTH getting and using on the Expresscard slot. Used to hold out for that GFX card that never came to be. =/

Anyways with the new digital over the air tv signal, I heard its very clear quality and was wondering, is there a good expresscard that does the job well for tv over the air? Bonus points if the AV is in sync for game systems.

Also have a Lenovo s10e wouldnt mind using it for either. Thanks. =)

 

OTA depends on your current location with respect to the broadcast tower, and whether there are obstacles (mountains/hills nearby, highrise, your location on your highrise, near a window...)

http://antennaweb.org gives you estimated channels that you can get per antenna... 10 miles works for a small portable antenna...

i'd get a USB tuner... expresscard usually juts out, and you can't use it on a desktop... and there are more choices for USB...

this Volar Max is the one i have... heres something i recorded from OTA + HD

however, usually the s-video/composite/component would lag... i have two usb devices, both have lag... can't do anything about it, unless you have a quad core+good GPU system and get a tuner with analog hardware acceleration, then maybe... but probably not, seeing that my CPU/GPU doesn't go above 60% doing this

 

Ok good to know that USB is good for Digital OTA.

Yea I HATED when I had to use downgraded drivers on my ATI 9600 AIW since the new ones stream the input to the HD and thus causes AV lag with game consoles... the older drivers just displayed it without issues. (Which is why people use dscaler to fix that lag issue)

So OTA with the antenna looks good? I know our area people are surprised its so good in quality. Im just looking at it for the mobile aspect. When I am at work or camping. =)

 

just make sure you have towers within 10 miles of your location and you are golden... upgrade to a better portable antenna like the terk hdtva to get up to 30 miles...

ya, for digital, interface doesn't matter as long as the interface supports the bandwidth needed to read digital streams... the device would 'pull' the MPEG2 stream from the source and write to HDD/RAM, and CPU/GPU does some work to display the MPEG2 stream... only CPU/GPU work is to display the stream, no work is required to just record the stream without displaying it

for analog, you need work to record the stream AND to display the stream

 

Honestly, I'd go for a http://www.avermedia-usa.com/AVerTV/product/ProductDetail.aspx?Id=478

It's expresscard and it's mini. I don't think this one juts out much plus it's not USB. My personal experience and others' experiences with USB TV tuner are less than stellar.

 

Digital OTA is the best possible TV signal for broadcast channels. At best, the cable or satellite company passes it through unchanged. At worst, they recompress it. In no case do they improve it. However, if you're not in a good location to get a signal, then it doesn't matter.

I have the Avermedia and it works well. However, be careful with the cable input, which is a bit fragile.