I am thinking of getting my wife a new machine for christmas with a tv tuner card but I never have used one myself.

How exactly do they work with cable TV? I am assuming you still need a cable box. Are there ways to get around this and go direct to the card? I would like the unit to esentially replace the box/DVR.

Is the resolution hd? Anything else you can tell me would be good.

easiest solution for a home made dvr. I use it and love it and I've tried them all.
http://www.snapstream.com/

Mythtv is ok and works well but is alot of work to get up and going. It might be easier now but 3 years ago it was not the case. (this is the open source tivo)

i use a tuner card. i don't use a box, i just run the cable straight into the card and i just get the regular cable channels, which is still like 70 channels.

i think that they have HD tuner cards too, but i'm not sure if you can just run straight into them.

i like mine a lot.

they do have hd cards. im not exactly sure how they work but you can get an ir blaster that connects from you pc to the hd cable box. it changes the channel when needed. and the hd box connect via rca/svideo cables to the tuner card. (i think).

keep in mind you will need more than one tuner card if you want to record and watch something else.

Wow i just miss the show and go fishing it will be in reruns later anyways.:cheers:

even in Feb Lu?

Wow i just miss the show and go fishing it will be in reruns later anyways.:cheers:

once you go commerical free, you won't go back.