TV Tuner for Laptop

With the spread of mobile technology these days, it has become quite common to try to reduce the amount of hardware lying around in your house or apartment. Granted, your laptop will never replace the 60” plasma screen in your living room, but, with a TV tuner for laptop, you can watch your favorite shows right on your laptop computer.  

More and more laptop and notebook manufacturers are trying to meet this need and have integrated TV tuners in the computer systems they are building. But, if your laptop doesn't come with a TV tuner, you can attach an external device. 

The most common choice for a laptop TV tuner is a PCMCIA card. The key advantage is that it's a “set and forget” extension, meaning you plug it in your notebook's slot, install the software it comes with and you are set. When you switch your notebook off, you don't have to remember to put the card in the bag, or disconnect it beforehand, like you would do with, say, an external mouse.  

On the other hand, you should consider purchasing a USB based TV tuner for laptop computer if you plan on using the device with a desktop computer as well. It's highly uncommon for desktop PC's to come with PCMCIA adapters, so, if you will not only use it on your laptop, or plan to stop using (or even sell) your notebook, you should seriously consider a USB device. Its main downside is that it could be much slower on old computers than a PCMCIA card.  

Laptop TV Tuner – Buying Considerations 

When shopping for laptop TV tuner cards, make sure you look for the number and range of channels supported. Older models may only allow you to watch a small set of your shows, or not allow you to record the incoming stream locally. We specifically discuss the Hauppage tv tuner and Geniatech external tuner for your convenience.

Recording directly as MPEG-4 is another nifty feature to look for in your new gadget: this standard allows compressed recording of the incoming data flow, which will save you the burden of downloading the stream in some format and compressing it afterwards. As a rule, one hour of 640x480 stream shouldn't exceed 400 Megabytes. 

Also, read the system requirements before buying TV tuners for laptops. If you own an older computer, you could find that it is unable to process the heavy data flow, which could lead to buffering lags or audio vs. video de-synchronization. Also look into the type of TV tuner software that may need to be installed.

Most manufacturers will ask for at least a Pentium III processor at 800 MHz and 512 Megabytes of RAM, recommending at least a Pentium IV at 1.6GHz CPU and 1 GB of RAM for optimum performance.  

Like with any other device or gadget, once you have decided on a certain TV tuner for laptop, it's highly recommended that you read up on what others had to say about it. Reading user testimonials is always a good way of finding out how that equipment works and learn about its limitations, about what it can and, most important, what it cannot do.