Might be a stupid question but i'm not really sure. Don't wanna buy a tv card and then i have to go back and buy a graphics card too
Graphics card would ONLY be needed if the one you have does'nt support dual monitor setup,assuming you want two monitors or a monitor & a tv connected,in other words a graphic card that has tv out would allow you to watch the tv as well as continue doing whatever on the other monitor (assuming it has dual out some are single out),if your happy with one monitor setup then you don't need a tv enabled graphic card,tho it is pretty sweet having dual screens
Then it boils down to whether the onboard graphics can display the tv window well enough for smoothness of frames of whatever program your watching
Hang on you need to answer dailun's question of what specs your machine are that's why he asked what your attempting to install a tv car into,he is also correct if your comp does not have onboard intergrated graphics (if it does you'll have a vga connection for a monitor) or a pci or pci-e auxillary graphic card your comp will not boot (just sits there making loud fan noise monitor indicator LED will not change turn green) What purpose do you want a tv card for ?? So give the specs of your machine, ?? make ?? model ?? model of motherboard if a custom machine including cpu ?? cpu size ?? amount of ram ?? voltage of power supply 250watts or above ?? ASNWER ALL QUESTIONS
scorpNZ's questions are more comprehensive and I did err, your PC may boot without a video card. There are too many assumptions that you are asking us to make.
Ok. Here goes. I want to record tv shows from....well the tv. Not sure what make not sure what model. 512 ram. 1.7 ghz cpu. Is this a sufficient amount of information? Oh and 250 watt power supply.
Ahhh is that ..lol.. cpu will be fine even if it's a sempron & power supply are fine Ram may not be ok,tv cards do suck a fair bit of ram you'll most probably get away with a pixelview pro 3 or similar but only just i suspect,pixelview pro 3 is a single tuner style tv card,(if in the future you want to have a dual tv tuner you'll need at min 2gb ram & dual core no exceptions). You will need to pay particular attention to the tv cards specs that you intend to buy compared with the specs of your machine,the tv card will output to MPEG2 or is it MPEG4,can't quite remember. Since your putting a tv card in the comp you should think about turning it into a home theatre pc by adding a graphic card that can disply on a tv & increase to 2gb ram,you don't need to change the OS xp home is perfectly fine,reason i say this is i've done it myself with all my pc's & it's bloody brilliant especially for watching dvd movies,installing xbmc is even better,using a tv enabled graphic card allows you to have a dual monitor setup so you can watch tv on a tv from a pre recorded tv show from the computer..lol.. & surf with the comp monitor ps: when i say tv enabled graphic card i don't mean it can pick up a tv signal all i mean is it can disply the desktop on a tv if you want too
The cards i'm talking about are for desktops,there are usb tv cards unless your lappy has one as an accessory addon
