So I have absolutley no knowledge of TV Tuner cards at all. I am looking to put one in my computer I am building so I can be ready to record football games by the start of the season. I have come across several different ones in my searches; the All-In-Wonders that double as graphics cards, the regular PCI tv tuners, or USB ones. Quality is the most important key. What are the best cards? Can I straight record programs once the card is hooked up with my computer or does it require other software to record with TV Tuner cards? I am looking for the best basicly, or the most highly recommended. This will be for a desktop, and I am also wondering if the USB one would be the most beneficial so I could use it with my laptop too?

There's a pretty good list of cards at VideoHelp.com. I like my Hauppauge PVR USB2. It is an external encoder, comes with basic editing and authoring software and a TIVO like on-line programming service. It encodes using the same chip many MPEG program stream encoders use. The screen caps in my signature came from it. The 'DHARMA' logo was about as big as the bug most TV stations put in the lower right corner of the screen, and the Oceanic Airlines tail is about half a screen width. Here's a Hummer from a commercial a few seconds ago:

Awesome. What is the average size of something you record? Like how big would a 5 min clip be? Can you record it to AVI format, or is that something you have to convert it to (if yes, does it come with the software)?

Sorry for all the questions I am just trying to get an actual grasp of everything cause I don't know anyone with a tv tuner.

I use about a Gb per hour for TIVO stuff (Family Guy,CSI, etc.), 3 or 4 Gb Hr for archive stuff (DVD quality). The card output is MPEG1 or 2 only, but they offer a $30 program to convert (realtime) to the various MPEG4 formats or you can use VirtualDub Mod (Free) to transcode. I've used VDub to convert to DV to use captured footage in a number of editors. The uLead DVD MovieFactory that came with it does an OK job for cutting out commercials, making chapters and menus and burning to VCD, Svcd or DVD. I don't burn much, instead just hooking the laptop to the TV and playing the Vid in Power DVD.

Great. That is exactly what I am looking for. I really appreciate the help.