Hardware decoder, TV tuner?

[techs]

Computer purchased off the television. Says Premier2 on the faceplate. Has Elitegroup mobo p4 1.7ghz with winxp home. There is an Nvidia Vanta video card. In the pci slot next to it is an add in card that has no markings. It has a rectangular metal enclosure on it. It has a S-vhs out and a Coax out. There is one identifiable chip on it that says Conexant. In device manager it says Mutlimedia video controller and Multimedia audio controller-both without drivers. Any ideas on who made this card? Thanks.

[NooNoo]

Is there an FCC ID on it? mebbe on a label or the back of the card?

Does it look like this? (http://www.pc-express.com.au/prod19.htm)

[techs]

No fcc id. It does look very much like that however. That one seems to have two connectors that look like coax but the card I have has only one, plus a s-vhs port (i think)where one of the coax ports are. I have to dig the card out of the computer and check the numbers on the chipset. I know that there are not a whole lot of companies that make this type of card. I wonder if I can find a list of many of the major manufacturers? P.S. I did see an Asus card at newegg that looks a lot like it.

[NooNoo]

Loads of manufacturers use that chipset! However, most have more jacks on the card - video in, video out etc.. Pinning it down is not going to be terribly easy.

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

Originally posted by techs
No fcc id. It does look very much like that however. That one seems to have two connectors that look like coax but the card I have has only one, plus a s-vhs port (i think)where one of the coax ports are. I have to dig the card out of the computer and check the numbers on the chipset. I know that there are not a whole lot of companies that make this type of card. I wonder if I can find a list of many of the major manufacturers? P.S. I did see an Asus card at newegg that looks a lot like it.

Those ports on the card noonoo linked to are firewire not coax.

And BTW, it's called s-video not s-vhs (s-vhs is a type of video tape).

[Kermit D. Frog]

Sounds like a TV tuner card to me. Ati's have that rectangular metal enclosure on their tv tuner cards as well. However, I did not know that Connexant was in the video business...I used to have a modem made by connexant. I'd say you're looking for a tv tuner card, and if the only chip you can find is from connexant, that's where I'd start looking.

[Kermit D. Frog]

Actually, after doing a little research, I found that Connexant makes TV decoder chips. So you may actually need to look to the video card manufacturer for drivers....Is this module connected in any way to the video card??

[trippinfool]

I picked up a TV Tuner card not too long ago at a CompUSA store, it was an IOMagic PC PVR Card. It contained an Conexant chip on it, and also 1-Coax, 1-RCA Video In, 1-S-Video In, and also a Line out to go to your sound card. No internal connections, just a PCI card. It ran for about $40 retail, which may give you a clue on its value to you.

For the main page:
http://techsupport.iomagic.com/support/videocards/PCPVR/index.htm

For the driver page:
http://techsupport.iomagic.com/support/videocards/PCPVR/drivers.htm


Good luck to you.

[trippinfool]

Another thing:
This card has NO connection to my video card. There is 1-coax input for TV signal, and also 1-3.5" audio out to your soundcard. All capture is done within Windows. You can do PVR, TV Viewing, etc. If you plug in a video input into either the s-vid or rca, once you get the driver working, you can select the different inputs in whatever capture program you are using.

[techs]

this card did have a connection from the video card to to the tuner card. Since all this person wanted this computer for was to surf the net and do wordproccessing I removed it. since it was difficult diagnosis due to random problems after I did all I could (checked ram, cpu, power supply, video card) I returned it to here with minimal programs and it is working ok. I think updating the bios and leaving out the software that came with the computer (which was bought very soon after XP came out and had software written for Win98 and 2000) it seems to be running fine. I may see about getting the card back from here if she doesn't want it. Be interesting to try and get it to work.

[trippinfool]

it works pretty sweet to record the compatible channels off of my digital cable. it only supports 158 channels in my config. but you can record shows as needed. i haven't got it to the point of burning a dvd with it. enjoy. there is cyberlink power vcr II and also snapstream pvs?