The core of any TV tuner is the chip that is designed to receive the signal. Currently, there are various chips that are designed to receive different signals. If you have purchased a TV tuner two years ago, you are most likely to have a card that only receives analog signal. Lately, the newer tuner card comes with digital tuner receivers which receives DVB or ATSC transmissions. Many newer and more expensive tuners even come with both tuners (combo) where users are able to receive both signals. A combo tuner is different from hybrid tuner. A combo tuner can receive both digital and analog together to allow users to watch TV coming from both signals while a hybrid tuner can only receive one or the other.

AMD (ATI) was the leader in the PVR with their All-in-Wonder graphic card (where a powerful graphic card that function as both a gaming card and PVR). Unfortunately, AMD has decided to abandon any further development of All-in-Wonder all together and focusing on gaming graphic cards. Luckily, AMD has not totally abandoned their development of multimedia add-on cards as their hardware can be considered as some of the best. Their latest TV Wonder 650 line-up has combined many proven technologies into one of the arguably best TV tuner card found on a consumer desktop. Today, we will take a look at one of the best of the bunch, courtesy of VisionTek—The VisionTek TV Wonder 650 PCIe.