Monitor as a TV - programs for working with a TV tuner. Huge selection of drivers for TV tuners
To work with a TV tuner, it is preferable to use the standard software package that comes with the device. But if you bought a TV tuner from a friend, you may not have the disk. In addition, the drivers may have been out of date for a long time. In this case, you will have to download the program yourself.
If Windows 7 is installed on your computer, most likely it will prompt you to install the necessary components and required updates for the TV tuner to fully operate. In this case, simply follow the suggested tips. This is the easiest of all the options presented.
As you can see, there are many different programs for the proper operation of the TV tuner. It is not necessary to use the manufacturer's utilities. Choose any option you like and download it.
TV Player Classic- a free program for viewing and recording to disk online Internet television with on-the-fly compression into AVI format (Xvid, DivX, etc.), as well as TV channels received through a TV tuner or video stream from a video camera (if available in the system). The program allows you to broadcast your own channel on the Internet from a TV tuner, video camera or other Internet TV channel. Watch more than 20 paid Russian-language and 400 international channels, including adult channels (Adult, XXX), for free and more than 1,200 free television channels from 109 countries. For TV Player Classic users, the following paid Russian TV channels are broadcast free of charge - REN TV, TNT, Humor TV, World Fashion, Russian EXTREME, Eurosportnews, RTR Planet, Muz.kanal, MusicBoxRU, Special Rock TV, Vesti, Eurosportnews, STS, TBN, Mir , Spas TV, TV Center, O2 TV, SGU TV, TDK, STYLE TV, A - One, Bridge TV, RuTV, AMTV, RBC... To watch online TV you do not need a TV tuner, all channels are broadcast directly via an Internet connection. All versions of Windows are supported, including Windows Vista. To connect through a proxy server, you just need to specify its settings in Internet Explorer. It is possible to update the list of television channels and add a channel to the Global Database by any user of the program (after passing verification).
Key features of TV Player Classic:
- View and record more than 1200 absolutely free Internet television streaming channels.
- viewing and recording TV channels received from a TV tuner or video camera
- Broadcasting your own TV channel on the Internet from a video camera, TV tuner or other Internet TV channel
- recording of all video streams in AVI format (Xvid, DivX, etc.) with compression on the fly or after recording
- View more than 20 paid Russian-language, 400 international television channels and “For Adults” channels for free.
- TV (Dual) mode to display a copy of the image on a TV or second monitor
- "Built-in separate" mode for viewing the image on a selected area of the monitor with size adjustment
- viewing TV channels on a monitor and/or TV in full screen mode.
- bit rate filter to display channels that will be viewed well at a given Internet connection speed
- full saving of all current settings upon exit and their restoration the next time the program is launched
- channel list update
- proxy server support
- free channels do not require installation of additional software (such as Windows media player, Real player, etc.)
No additional equipment required.
About channels:
Some stations may not be working at the moment due to overload. Not all channels operate 24 hours a day. The quality of all channels is different.
About watching TV channels on TV:
Since the resolution of the TV is significantly lower than the resolution of the monitor, and the kinescope point is much larger, it is strongly recommended to watch terrestrial Internet television on the TV in full screen mode. In most cases, the image quality is no worse than regular or cable television. Most modern video cards support TV-OUT mode. Connect the TV to the computer into the TV-OUT connector using a special cable, sold in almost any electronics store (if it did not come with a video card). You will be surprised by the quality of the image. The program is free for Russian-speaking users.
If a program suffers from major or minor shortcomings, there will always be good people who can correct these shortcomings for free or for little money. Computer TV tuner software is no exception.
The main differences between alternative programs for controlling a TV tuner:
- P fully Russified interface or the ability to ru
sification. - Individual settings of all possible parameters for
each channel. - Displays the current time, channel number and its
names in Russian. - Possibility of downloading television programs from the Internet to
Russian language. - Powerful image quality enhancement systems
deinterlacing, noise reduction, etc.) - Expanded capabilities for working with teletext.
- Advanced functions of a digital video recorder.
- Support for remote controls other than those offered by the manufacturer
TV tuner driver; for full operation, drivers are produced
no driver required - There is no connection to a specific type of tuner. Alternative software
supports many different chipsets, and replacing your
tuner is new, you can continue to use your usual
program.
The owners of some devices are lucky - for example, Aver-Media's software can be called quite good, and ATI's Multimedia Center is very good. But PixelView Play-TVpro devices come with terrible software. In this case, in order not to suffer for the rest of your life, you need to download a suitable program.
In general, it makes sense to try alternative software in any case, at least to compare the program’s capabilities and picture quality, which largely depends on the algorithm by which interlaced television scanning is converted to progressive. In addition, alternative programs can offer a lot of useful functions.
JTV
Let's start with one of the most popular programs today - JTV. The program is designed to work with tuners based on the Bt848/878 chipset (AVerMedia TVPhone/TVCap-ture, PixelView, FlyVideo, etc.) and does not require a driver from the manufacturer. All JTV functions are available by right-clicking on the TV window. It’s immediately worth noting that the menus and help are completely Russified, which will be useful for inexperienced users.
When configuring the program, you first need to specify the tuner model. Channel tuning is carried out automatically. Then you should name the channels and select a color system for each (SECAM by default). All JTV settings can be saved in a separate file.
The main disadvantage of JTV is the inability to disproportionately scale the window (sometimes this interferes with watching widescreen movies). Among the advantages are high accuracy in determining the channel frequency, display of the channel name, its number and current time, Russified teletext with a developed page caching system. Each function has its own key combination.
The most interesting feature of JTV is support for working with the TV program guide. It is enough to download the corresponding file once a week from the Russian JTV page (there are programs from central and regional television companies) - and there is no longer any need to look at a newspaper or magazine. Program titles and plot information will appear on the screen automatically.
The JTVRemote utility allows you to control not only the TV tuner, but also WinAMP and WinDVD players from the remote control.
FLY98
The second worthy program is FLY98. Unlike JTV, FLY98 has an interface that is customizable using “skins” - on the manufacturer’s website there are about 15 skins for different tastes. The program has a number of interesting functions, in particular, you can save individual settings for each of the 255 memorized channels and run FLY98 on a timer. The size of the TV window is adjustable from a 1x1 pixel square to an 800x600 pixel rectangle, and you can set the display mode on top of all windows.
The remote control allows you to control not only the WinAMP player and other players, but also the mouse cursor.
The program is able to work with tuners on Bt8X8 chips from Aver, Zoltrix and PixelView. When setting up channels, you can specify the scanning step. But the main feature of FLY98, perhaps, is the “The Fly Capture” function - built-in means of capturing sound, image and individual frames (frames can be saved in BMP or JPG formats using a timer or by pressing a key). The digital video recorder is also equipped with a timer - just set the computer to automatically turn on at the right time (for example, late at night), and the program itself will record the TV show. However, FLY98 does not have its own capture driver, so the screen size, color depth and compression parameters are limited by the capabilities of the TV tuner driver.
bTV Professional
The programs discussed above are free (which is partly why they are so widely used), and therefore you should not place too high demands on them in terms of image quality. Here we have to use complex algorithms, the development of which is not always accessible to artisans, even talented ones.
Therefore, higher-class programs are distributed for money, albeit not very much. For example, BorgSoftware (www.borg-tech.org) offers software mu bTV Professional, a personal license for which costs $20. It can be issued on the manufacturer's website. On the Internet, of course, it is easy to find a hacked version, for example on the website tu- ner.ixbt.com.
The bTV program is specially created to work with tuners based on Bt848/849/878/879 chips and is capable of competing with high-end TVs in terms of functionality. bTV does not have a familiar interface; all service windows are called using key combinations. The initial setup takes 1-2 minutes: you need to select the card model and tuner type from the proposed lists. The tuner type (eg Philips PAL DK) can be found on the shielded housing of the receiver.
The program has auto control of the frequency of a weak and unstable signal and a “safe” operating mode is provided, in which direct access to the computer memory - DMA - is not used (sometimes its use leads to the system freezing). A built-in color scale is available for fine-tuning image parameters. You can search for channels in two ways - either by fixed frequencies of channels in specific countries, or by the entire frequency range. In our country, the second option is preferable.
Despite the fact that the interface is English, channels can be given Russian names. Each of them has individual settings. This is an important feature: the TV tuner does not have an automatic picture adjustment system, as a result of which different channels may be displayed differently, for example with a shift or with a different brightness. Audio and teletext parameters can also be set individually.
The teletext reception function allows you to choose how to display it: as a separate window or on a television picture with a transparent or black background. All pages can be saved in HTML format for later use.
But the most important advantage bTV- high quality image. This is achieved through the use of effective filters and television signal adaptation algorithms. By manipulating the deinterlacing options (combining even and not Even fields for displaying the entire frame) you can achieve an almost perfect picture, free from the effects of a “comb” or “comb”. You can set any aspect ratio and image scale, including full screen.
bTV Compatible with most remote controls known today. And the small utility btTool displays the state of internal system variables in real time, which is useful for setting up programs and TV channels.
DScaler
Our review will be completed by the DScaler software video processor. (deinterlace.source-orge.net) This is a rather unusual product. DScaler receives an interlaced analog signal from a TV tuner or other source (VCR, DVD/LD player, etc.) and converts it into a progressive scan signal. Then it is optimized for the required resolution for viewing on a monitor or, for example, on a projector. Unlike most original TV tuner programs, DScaler uses sophisticated deinterlacing algorithms to produce high-quality images. The screen aspect ratio is controlled automatically. The program interface is nothing special - a regular window with menu items. Let's list just some of the main features: automatic channel tuning (there are preset frequencies of the main Russian channels); manual selection of color system; switching with one key all possible deinterlacing modes; zoom mode from 1 to 4 in increments of 2; on-screen menu displaying comprehensive information about the current state of the signal processing system; overscan mode; adjusting image parameters, including U and V components. You can select pixel width, filters (gamma, linear correction, noise reduction), test color scale etc.
We can say that DScaler is one of the best software video processors for PC. Moreover, it is absolutely free.
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