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A few years ago, to be able to get High Definition TV (HDTV) signals on your computer, you would have needed an HDTV-ready TV set and RGB monitor wires to connect the two.

Then, HDTV tuner PCI cards were invented. These tuner cards eliminated the need for an HDTV set and cables as they are installed in the computer’s motherboard to allow for HDTV signal reception. Today, HDTV signals come in a portable box you plug into your PC’s USB port.

An evident advantage of using USB HDTV tuners is that it is very easy to install with PCs or laptops. The earlier PCI cards are limited to run only on desktop PCs. Disassembling and reassembling the computer to plug in PCI tuner cards on motherboards is also risky.

USB HDTV tuners also permit zooming-in certain parts of live TV or playback file images. What’s more, they provide HD Editors for easy editing of recorded HD streams files.

USB HDTV tuners have the lowest CPU resource usage to decode the HD Stream by using InterVideo’s software HFTV Decoder. Auto power on/off is controlled by plugging in or out of USB cable. USB HDTV tuners provide remote control. Bundling with InterVideo Win DVD4 is also possible.

Microsoft WHQL logo for Windows XP are already provided to USB HDTV tuners like OnAir. This proves that they are compatible with Microsoft operating systems. Moreover, OnAir HDTV tuner, and some of its successors, is registered in Microsoft Catalogs. Information of USB HDTV tuners and their availability are now easy to search for in US and Canada.

By simple plug and play, USB HDTV tuners are now ready to support the next generation of multimedia operating system, Microsoft Media Center 1.X (analog TV only). USB HDTV tuners have full PVR features including the time shift.

The time shift offers the ability to record live TV while playing the live analog TV for pre-defined period of time. Like the very famous TiVo, this feature helps a user not to miss any part of live TV in their PCs or laptops even though a user is away from these for a while.