Internal Mini PCI-E TV Tuner Compatability

I've recently bought a Dell Inspiron 1520 which has three Mini PCI-E slots, labeled WWAN, WLAN and WPAN.

The WLAN slot is in use leaving 2 more which I beielve can be used with any other Mini PCI-E hardware.

I'm looking for an internal DVB-T Tuner that is compatible with one of these slots (I've seen a few mentioned in Google search results) but I'm not sure about aerial/antenna connectivity.

My main question is if such devices can be used without any external aerial (however poor the signal), or if they can connect to the internal aerial/antenna in the laptop itself (such as the WLAN uses). Do such cards allow for the two small wires to connect and act as an aerial even if they were designed for other purposes?

If anyone can help or provide any information relating to setting up a completely integrated TV tuner I'd be very appreciative!

Thanks

 

AS far as i know, there are no tv tuners made for the mini pci-express ports in laptops. You need tv hookup ports on you system, which the 1520 does not have. I have two dual Avermedia M103 tuners in my Voodoo laptop and both of them are on mini pci ports.

Your best bet is to go for an external tv tuner. Hauppage makes very good tuners, Avermedia's external ones are ok, but not as good.

K-TRON

 

http://www.behardware.com/news/8700/cebit-pci-express-tv-tuner-in-2007.html
there is one but no laptop got TV antenna port for it.

 

Thanks for that fast reponse - I'm thinking that PCI-E tuners are pretty much a new concept and there's not much information about them out there at the moment. The products I saw were these:

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=1513-9210

http://www.azurewave.com/product_AD-TM510_1.asp

http://www.azurewave.com/product_AD-TM200_1.asp

http://www.azurewave.com/product_AD-TM500_1.asp

I believe these would fit into one of my free PCI-E slots but I've no idea what you'd do about getting a decent enough signal into it - would the computer have to have a dedicated antenna port like the one you mention above?

It'd be really great if they were able to use the same antenna as the WLAN uses but I can't find any information about what input connections these things have.

The reason why I'm after an internal tuner is that I have an external USB stick with all the several metres of wiring and the external antenna which is very impractical to take around on the move with you so an integrated solution would really be preferred.

Thanks for your help and if anyone knows anything about such tuners please let me know!

Thanks

 

TV tuner
PCIe cards

 

hello, how have you faired with this..

 

Hi, thanks for those links - it would appear then that these integrated PCI-E TV tuner cards will fit in my Inspiron 1520 and use the same aerial/antenna connector as the integrated WLAN card uses, although you need to use an adapter to convert this connector into the standard coax TV connector that all other TV devices use. This suggests that even though the internal aerial will fit into the connector on the card, it won't work as it wont mannage to pick up any TV signal from it.
Could someone please confirm that is this correct?

Thanks

 

Hmm, you do know that those internal Tv-tuners you posted are for European Digital Tv, righ (technically parts of europe, asia, africa, Asia/Australasia, Argentina and Urugay)? So if you're from North America, they won't work. If you are from one of the aforementioned parts of the world, nevermind this post.

 

Hi, yeah I'm actually in the UK so I believe that those devices could be used provided they work with my notebook - I didn't realise that they couldn't be used in North America so thanks for the info!

 

Im actually thinking of getting one of these for myself, i would have got one from AW when i bought the system but it was a £60 upgrade because it came with the remote control standard with no option just for the tuner card.

anyone had any luck with these? do you need your own arial plugged into your laptop or even worse does it have to be plugged into an actual socket to find anythin? (like many happuauge ones ive tried)