<p>Whether you're bring a laptop or desktop, purchase a tv tuner so that you can watch and record tv on your computer without lugging a tv to your dorm room.</p>
<p>i was planning to do that also. any reccomendations for an external one (for laptop)? preferably USB 2.0 (or firewire?) for better quality recording.</p>
<p>whats the price range of tv tuners? do they just take up a pci slot?</p>
<p>just got the ATI TV-Wonder USB 2.0 at Best Buy today. $59.99...go now if you're interested, its on sale. i'll post feedback once i set it up....</p>
<p>theres also a 10% off coupon so it came out to be $58.44 out the door (in CA...which most of you are anyways)</p>
<p>10% off coupon:
<a href="http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/external/emailpdf/25655%20FD%20strlng%20CPN.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/external/emailpdf/25655%20FD%20strlng%20CPN.pdf</a></p>
<p>got it installed. installation went smoothly without a hitch...the included drivers/software are a little old (9.02 vs 9.08). new versions can be downloaded from ati.</p>
<p>video quality is alright...nothing spectacular...</p>
<p>it has a software MPEG encoder so it uses some CPU power</p>
<p>unit itself gets pretty hot...</p>
<p>yeah....</p>
<p>very nice..thanks for the review =)</p>
<p>I bought myself an ATi Theater 550 Pro which has a 3d comb filter hehe and hardware mpeg2 encoding =)</p>
<p>I second the whole "buy a TV tuner bit". My freshman roommate was able to record episodes of Smallville, un-compressed, while he was out and watch them while surfing. Very nifty.</p>
<p>HHAHAHA YUPP.</p>
<p>Don't forget to go for hardware based encoding tv tuners and not the software based version that are cheaper. The software ones takes up CPU usage and aren't compatible with Windows MCE2005</p>
<p>How much space will the files take up on the hard drive though? Aren't uncompressed video files significantly large? Then again, I guess that's what DVD burners are for. Haha. Is a regular 40GB HD more than enough?</p>
<p>Oh, and if I plan on bringing my XBox to school, I should just forget about the TV tuner and just bring a TV, right?</p>
<p>yeah, saving uncompressed video can take up a lot of space. I guess it depends on how much you plan to record. If they're popular shows, I would say just download them from bittorrent, where they're all compressed.
Personally, I have lots of video, so I have two hard drives with a combined 360 Gb of space, and I think I have about 60 gigs free right now. :)</p>
<p>With a TV tuner..you don't need a TV at all. You can hook up your xbox right into your Tv tuner input. there will either be an external breakout box or a composite/s-video input on the back. Just plug in the cables from your xbox into the tuner and you're all set to go.</p>
<p>haha, by the way..do you have a modded xbox?</p>
<p>I do..hehe feel free to come over and play some halo!</p>