Do i need a TV tuner?

Question

I'm moving into a new house at the moment of the month and i'm excited as i intend to turn it into a technology friendly / cool pad. I'm getting an HD LCD TV for my room with an HD box from Dish Network. I also intend to run my desktop through the LCD TV and use wireless keyboard/mouse so i could watch movies and listed to my music without having too much clutter from different devices. I'm getting a desktop with "ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 128MB" graphics card. What i can't seem to figure out is

1) would i need a tv tuner card? Wouldn't the tv reception quality be better if i ran it directly from the dish box to the tv?

2) I'd like to record tv programs that i can't watch and later see them on my iphone with minimal effort.

What do i need, please advise. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would buy a better card than one with 128mb of ram. 512mb should be minimum.

You can run your pc through you LCD tv, I do, without a tv tuner.  I connect my LCD through a DVI to HDMI cable and a simple cable for sound.

However, if you plan to record from dish then yes you will need one.