What to use for TV viewing?

Hello all!

I'm planning on finally buying a TV tuner card for my puter since the pros for that outweighed the cons. But, I hate using Windows Media Center. That was one of the cons of a TV tuner card actually. It's designed to work with remote controls better in my opinion than a mouse. I really wanted Microsoft to build an awesome metro styled Media Center...

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone knows or uses a real good program for TV browsing with a tuner card. I know that VLC Player does, but is there something better?

Thanks!

Hi there

Hauppage products usually work fine. These days I tend to use web based services such as Sky GO or BBC Iplayer but I've an older Hauppage TV USB tuner which worked fine for DTV (Digital Terrestial TV ) -- services such as freeview etc.

The Hauppage USB device comes with a decent application.

For "Stand alone" TV stuff you'll just have to google I'm afraid -- there are loads out there - especially for Linux systems.

cheers
jimbo

I have 2 Hauppage products that worked great with windows 7, but are now choppy and inconsistent with Win 8. I suspect it is a driver issue, but I have yet to find windows 8 drivers for tuner cards. not even beta. Does anyone know if windows 8 actually supports tuner cards or are they simply hit or miss using Win 7 drivers?

Ok. It seems like it was the software that had a problem with Windows 8. I downloaded the Media Center add-on. It's free until 1/1/12. Works perfectly!