TV Tuner

D

dibbs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 16, 2006
Messages
186
What kind of card would I need to be able to hook up a cable wire to my computer enabling me to actually watch cable t.v. on my computer? Is this possible? It would be awesome to buy a great LCD monitor and hook my computer and cable t.v. up to it.

Thanks in advance - Dan.
 
I was about to post the same question. Although, hopefully you don't mind, iantosca, I wanted to add to the question the following: What are the advantages/disadvantages of a separate tuner-box-thing?
 
Well, I don't have an answer, but I would like to jump on this bandwagon as well. I would love to have my satellite tv play back on my second monitor, but I have no idea how to do it...... Somebody has got to know if it's possible..
 
You'll need a TV tuner card. If you posted a similar question in the HTPC forum, you'd probably get a quicker/better reply.

I'm still researching my HTPC build, so i don't feel qualified to make suggestions.
 
Well, there's alot of different options you have, so here are some questions

1. Do you want HDTV?
2. Do you want to watch and record at the same time?
3. Do you want to use a front end such as MCE 2005?
4. What are you hooking this up to?

If you simple want to just watch TV on your computer, and that's it. You can get a TV Tuner card from just about any electronic store for about $50. You can either get USB or PCI. In either case, install the drivers, plug the coax cable in and you're good to go.

Hauppage is probably the best basic TV Tuner you can get.
 
EQTakeOffense said:
If you simply want to just watch TV on your computer, and that's it. You can get a TV Tuner card from just about any electronic store for about $50. You can either get USB or PCI. In either case, install the drivers, plug the coax cable in and you're good to go.

Hauppage is probably the best basic TV Tuner you can get.
Click to expand...

Does that include HDTV? What more do you need for recording and such?
 
Does that include HDTV? What more do you need for recording and such?
Click to expand...

HDTV gets a little more complicated.

The vast majority of HDTV tuner cards are OTA (Over the Air) HDTV which means you need an antenna to receive the channels, and if you're in the moutains, or away from the city, chances are you'll only pick up a few HD channels at best.

The higher-end HDTV tuner cards are QAM which means it can tune into unencpryted HDTV from the cable directly. Think of FOX Monday Night Football. Encpryted channels are the ones you need a cable box fore (HBO, Stars).

The record, most times there's software with the TV Tuner, but there are lots of freeware applications as well.
 
Is there really much out there in the way of unencrypted HDTV? Don't get me wrong, Monday Night Football is almost worth it in and of itself. Right now I'm in the UCD dorms and we have some sort of TV through the coaxial, but I don't really know what it is.

I'm currently considering the 37" Westinghouse, as I'm sure many are as a result of the deals, and evaluating my options.
 
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