ADS Tech PTV-305 Instant TV Deluxe

The ADS Tech PTV-305 allows you to watch TV on your computer, whether it be antenna, cable, digital cable, or satellite.  It had 2 possible hooks up: Coxial lets you attach it to an antenna or standard cable.  The AV/S-Video hook up lets you attach it to any device the supports AV or S-Video output.

Included is also a remote and remote receiver for your computer.  The receiver also includes a nifty feature that allows it change the channel on your setup box letting you use the Beyond TV user guide and setup up recordings without having to preset the channel!!!  BeyondTV is included which a great application that lets you watch and record TV and use its TV Guide.

I however choose to go with Microsoft Media Center (also included in Vista) from the Windows XP Media Center Edition.  You use a separate remote (not included in this product but is generally purchased with XP Media Center) that controls not only TV, but Music, Video, Pictures and more!!  This TV Tuner card is fully certified to work with Media Center and works well.

Either way you decide your TV Guide information is downloaded from the internet and you can even hide channels you don’t get in your cable or satellite package.  The performance is great with the built-in MPEG Coder and you can choose to record programs at various quality levels.  Overall I am very impressed though sometimes a few sound or quality issues may arise which I attribute more to the various analog cable stations being digitized.

I haven’t watched a TV Commercial in months using the convenient skip forward feature!! So if you looking for a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), this may be the cheapest and best way forward.  Other DVRs may not allow access to recorded shows for editing or burning a DVD the way your on PC does!!