PC TV tuners

[Amarok]

Anyone have any recommendations for one of these? I was thinking of getting one but I know nothing about them. Do you just need to have pre-existing cable tv to run a coaxial cable to the card?

[levish]

Coaxial to the pc implies you are connecting a antenna, normally a plain TV Tuner card will not properly decode CATV transmissions, you can however get Over the Air (including HD OTA stuff) with just a tuner and antenna.

I believe there's also some forms of free sat transmissions iirc

[Reality]

if you have a cable package from your local cable company, you'll get the basic cable channels over the coax that comes into the house, but you won't get the HD/Digital/Premium channels

this is coming from a comcast customer, other providers may differ

if you want HD channels, you'll need a rabbit-ears UHF antenna, or you can find cooler-looking UHF antennas at walmart/radioshack/newegg