TV Tuner question (1 Viewer)

[Joe Maiurro]

Hey everyone. Need some help installing my HTPC tv tuner card. Here is the story.. So I had a old tv tuner card (WinTV-GO Plus) laying around. So I installed it into my computer system with XP operating system. I have a ATI 4550 video card installed. I have a HDMI from the 4550 video card to my receiver. For sound to work with my older tuner card, I had to hook up a f/f jack from my LINE OUT on my tuner card to my onboard audio LINE IN input. No matter what I did though I couldn't get any sound from my tuner. All other sounds in Windows worked though. So a little more messing around I noticed that none of my external audio inputs were working (mic,headphones,line-in). Windows XP wasn't even regonizing them in the volume setup in control panel. All the drivers were up to date. I know the tv tuner card was good because I used to use it back in the day with no problems. I just figured it was the version of XP that I was using causing the problems. With all the headaches with this problem already, I just said screw it I'am going to install Vista and see if that fixes the audio problem. So after about 2 hours of installing Vista & all the updates & drivers, Vista is finally ready. So I go into the control panel to see if my external audio inputs are regonized by Vista this time before I try the tuner. Of course, they are not! By this time I am already losing it. So before I throw my computer through my wall I decided to do I bit more search for some info. I finally come across a post on some forum about when you install a video card with HDMI audio output, the operating system sometimes automatically disables your onboard audio chip in your bios. So I enter my bios and just like the article said, the onboard audio was disabled! So I enable it and just like that, windows finally regonizes my external jacks (mic,headphones,Line In). Now I have sound with my tuner right? Nope! I go to install my tuner into my system (now running Vista) and of course, my old tv tuner card is not supported by Vista. So I haven't been able to test and see if the sound problem with the tuner is fixed, but I am pretty sure it is since I found & enabled the setting in my bios. Since I am not going to uninstall the never ending installation of Vista, I guess I am just going to buy a new TV tuner card that is capatable with Vista. So people having problems with there onboard audio and have a video card installed, make sure to check your bios settings for onboard audio. Save yourself some headaches I hope!
On to my main question.. Since I have to buy a new TV tuner, I was looking at buying the HAUPPAUGE WINTV-HVR-1600 PCI HDTV DUAL TUNER. Nothing special but it is alll I need for now. On most of the newer tv tuners cards I have noticed that they don't have a Line Out jack. Isn't the line out jack for the audio of the TV? With no line out, how will I get the sound?? Am I making any sense to anyone?? Thanks for any help!

 

[Ken Chan]

No line out needed. Nowadays, especially with a DTV (HD or SD) tuner, all it does is capture the MPEG-2 stream that is flying through the air and dump it on the hard disk. It can then read it right off "live" or play it back later, as a DVR. It's much simpler and more reliable since the video and audio is "all in there", just as if you're watching a DVD.

Even in the next few months before the DTV switch-over (depending on your area), newer cards will take the analog signal and encode it to MPEG-2 on-the-fly, so the result is the same.

It's only with older cards that had to split the video and audio so that worst case, you could watch live with a video overlay and listen through the sound card's line in.