Choosing a TV Tuner for your HTPC (Home Theater PC) can be a difficult prospect. With most television reception devices, the guess work is taken care of since the tuner is either provided by your cable or satellite company or built into your TV. When it comes to PCs, there's a bit more work involved. Here we'll take a look at each type of signal and the tuner you'll need to receive them.

Don't worry.

While these types of signals have a lot of technical data attached to them, we won't make it too heavy. Our goal here is to ensure you know what tuner you need for what type of signal you wish to receive.

Over-the-Air Television

If you live close enough to local affiliates, this is a great way to get digital television into your HTPC for free. The only associated cost is the tuner itself. For this, you'll want to find an ATSC tuner. ATSC ( Advanced Television Systems Committee) is the digital transmission standard used in the United States for OTA (Over-the-Air) television broadcasts. In June of 2009, all broadcast transmissions in the U.S. switched to digital ATSC, replacing the analog NTSC (National Television System Committee) signal used for many years.

Satellite Television

Because there aren't any tuner cards available for satellite reception, your choice is limited to one. While satellite signals are sent digitally, you'll have to use your set-top box to convert them to analog and then send them to your PC tuner.

For this you can use an NTSC PC card. This isn't the best solution due to the fact that you won't be able to get HD programming, but if you live somewhere with no access to cable, it may be your only option.

Cable Television

With cable reception, things become a bit more complicated. Cable companies in the U.S. are in the midst of switching from analog to digital and they're not all doing it in the same way. Depending on the company you have and where they are in the transition, you could need one of several types of tuners.

First is NTSC. This is an analog signal and an NTSC tuner can be used to receive analog signals. This usually means channels 1-70 or so. As with satellite, you can't get HD programming with an NTSC card.

Next is ClearQAM. QAM is a digital signal type used by cable companies. "Clear" means that these channels are unencrypted and usually only include your local affiliates.

If you want to get full digital cable as you would from the company's set-top box, you'll need a CableCARD tuner. CableCARD allows you to receive all of your cable company's channels including those they offer in HD.

Conclusion

In the end, the tuner card you choose will be based on the type of signal you receive. While many people will be able to use one tuner, many will need to decide if multiple cards is better. If you can receive your local affiliates via an antenna but want cable as well, then having one ATSC and one QAM or CableCARD tuner might be your best solution.

Stay tuned here for tuner reviews, as well as in-depth information regarding the different types of signals available. Over time we'll be adding more information about each one.