TV on your notebook

I recently purchased a Dell 1721 with 1.9ghz AMD, 2 gb ram, a hi res screen, along with a tv tuner USB supplied by Dell. The only video card option was the integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1270. When I watch TV off my cable which may only be giving me a standard def signal, the picture is somewhat fuzzy and of lower quality than I expected. Would a different tuner make any difference or do I need a different computer with a higher power discrete video card in order to get a sharp picture?

 

considering..

i had an ispiron 1720 for 2 weeks, with i assume the same usb tv tuner. i'm almost certain that it is only capable of sd signals, i had the t7500 and the 256mb geforce 8600 and it still looked terrible. i returned the system and the tuner shortly after, so i never got to experiment with it.

i also know a lot of guys who have weaker specs than you and have hd tv tuners for their lappies that run flawlessly.

so i think its safe to say the problem lies with the tuner, not with your system.

http://www.autumnwave.com/Consumers/OnAir-GT.html
this particular tuner happens to be amazing, and is well worth the investment. a lot of snobby, techie nerds i know use it and its beautiful. makes me wish i had cable.

some specs:

 

Thanks. I will see if I can get Dell to swap out just the tuner tho' I've already returned the whole unit to them once because of this problem. Their customer service seems difficult to deal with and their exchange policy seems to focus only on exact exchanges but we'll see.

 

HELP. Dell says they won't exchange just the tuner and suggests that I contact their technical support people. I have spent hours already on the phone with their tech department and not gotten much help. One of their reps even suggested that the integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1270 video card (which is only one available with 1721) was incapable of good TV reception. Any other ideas short of simply returning the whole computer and starting over with a different brand?

 

I agree with mr.bobharris, your computer is fine, its just the tv tuner that is not very good. I would never buy the bundled tv tuner with any computer company, it is much better to do research on your own to find out which one is good.