The latest generation of tuners are external units that use the blessed USB port, which means that they now have the portability and convenience of grabbers. The USBLifeTV ($139.99) seems to have convenience in mind, in fact. Most external units do not have audio feeds, so you have to run the sound from the A/V source directly into your sound card in order to hear or record the audio track. This unit's built-in speaker let's you hear audio whenever you use the coaxial input plug. Composite inputs require running the sound to the sound card, however. Still, the LifeTV has the CapView's nice capture button on the unit, which does make screen grabs very convenient. We were able to snap a wondrous image of Scully's luscious bosom in mid-squeeze and even a sacred flash of the full Scully torso as the lovers descend (missed by many of the less acute Scully Paparazzi, by the way).
The LifeTV produced decent grabs and, in fact, the video stream grab was fluid, but like all of the company's line, it was unpolished and a bit frustrating. The manual is spare to say the least and the online docs were not much more detailed. The actual software shipping with the product did not have all of the functions promised in the docs. And I never could get any of the LifeView products to name grabbed files automatically and in background, pretty much a basic need for most video snatchers.
Like other USB tuners I've tried recently, the LifeTV gets a lot out of that USB port, even full screen video feeds. You will notice some image burps at full screen especially and generally greater blockiness than I saw across the line of PCI card tuners. If your image grabbing and video viewing needs are basic or if you need to port those capabilities across multiple machines, however, the USB LifeTV will be an attractive option - IF They should get their software and docs in better shape, however.
But I can just hear my lovely Scully saying now - "Do you expect me to believe that you can't manage to get an even larger and clearer image of my breast's one second of screen time than this? On what do you base this presumption, Mulder?" You're right, Dana, er, I mean, Miss Scully. We need to push our hardware to the limits. Why don't you and I cut open that CPU and try to find an internal solution to the quandary?