Tv Tuner For a m6811 NEED OPINIONS!!!!

Do you want to just watch TV or do you also need MPEG2 PVR functionality?

http://www.aver.com/2005home/product...0/usb300.shtml

Get USB because you might want to get a Gigabit Ethernet PCMCIA adapter or Soundblaster Audigy Notebook or something later on to use the PCMCIA slot.

Edit: The AverTV 300 is just one usb PVR along with the hauppauge that I know about. Don't take my word for it. I would check out comparisions and reviews. There are others I am sure.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...=avertv+review

The CCity one you show the link to above is just a plain USB tuner I believe. In my experience with Hauppauge products you really can't beat their experience.

As for the CPU requirements. First and foremost check the minimum CPU requirements as you previously pointed out were too high (2.0Ghz). If the product requires a high CPU clock then it has no hardware codec but instead uses software compression which you do not want. Playback decoding is done through an MPEG-2 DVD pack or similar non-encryption software decoder included with the USB PVR or you can use WinDVD, PowerDVD, etc.

Ok. Here is what I suggest. Hauppauge is really the leader when it comes to PVR functionality in this arena. Bite the bullet, save up and get the USB 2.0 version from them. You will not be sorry in either the quality or performance.

Edit: As a final warning if you never used PVR before on a PC...it is not as fast as the Java based hardware players such as Tivo or Replay TV. You may be disappointed depending on you tolerance for application lag in buffering of data or hard drive speed in recording. We all know the M68XX series does not include RAID which helps on a desktop in this arena splendidly. Using PVR for recording on a notebook without RAID....eeww. We are talking up to 12 Mbps data rate max for streaming through the USB's serial channel. However aside from recording shows and playing them at the same time (which takes a good harddrive and controller), you should be able to easily view your TV channels using a popular DVD product such as WinPVR or Win2000 application included with the Hauppauge. It would be just like watching a DVD. And it would use similar CPU and memory resources as well.

On a side note if you are interested in streaming live MPEG-2 data frames over 802.11g networks then you might want to look into a media connect device from Microsoft or from D-Link which I think is called the Media Lounge.

i have a plextor convertx usb 2.0 pvr and i like it. Cost me about $140 almost a year ago, after rebate. Plextor Link

I'll give you a little recap of the thing. It came with Intervideo WinDVR5 and WinDVD Creator 2. The nice thing about it was that it did hardware based Divx recording as well as mpeg-4 recording. would have prefered the mpeg-4 to be more geared to apple/quicktime, but perhaps i just haven't figured that out. The default profiles are nice, and it is easy enough to try the different qualities. Time-shifting only works when you record as mpeg-2 though.

As for it being a drain on system resources, its not too bad. Hackbox is right, just like watching a dvd. Though I always had the problem that if i launched a previously unlaunched app, it would freeze the video and force me to reboot the app. I typically used it running word, gaim, firefox, and maybe a few other apps, and the system ran great, so long as i launched those apps first.

If your archos supports divx, you might find this is the way to go. It was great for Dramas, comedy etc, but i've found that these usb pvrs arent great for fast moving sports, but hell, even the tivos dont do that all that well.

I dont know much about the other plextor models, but the PX-TV402U-NA has worked great for me.