TV Tuner that works with Multiple Adapters?

Question

I have a Radeon 9600 All In Wonder, which works fine for TV viewing. However, when I enable the monitors on my other video cards, the picture is always plain black on the TV window. Further, I'd like to move to a PCI Express 1x tuner if they exist (It need not support video out).

Does such a beast exist that supports this feature?

Answer 1

I do no think the All in Wonder card is actually the culprit here, at least not in the way you might at first think. I believe the problem is actually the copy protection the they are putting on the video. This is known as HDCP which stands for High-bandwidth Digital Copy Protection. When you are both imputing and outputting the TV signal through the same card the HDCP chain is maintained, but when you drag the video onto another monitor (and another card) the HDCP chain must be getting broken. My guess would be that the other cards in your computer are not HDCP compliant and the All In Wonder knows this and is unwilling to provide the other cards with the stream. I would suggest trying to get a card that you can confirm supports HDCP (maybe borrow one from a friend) and try that before looking for another capture card which will likely produce the same problem. Another possibility is that your monitor may not be HDCP compliant. I do not know if the video card is ensuring that HDCP is maintained end-to-end, but if it is then it could be possible that the monitor attached to the other card is not HDCP compliant and that could also cause the black video. If you are using VGA on your other monitor then it is a distinct possibility that is the problem.

Hope this helps!