In over my head....need help......

lyas · Rated PG Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 1

I am reading reading reading and I more confused now.

Someone make it clear for me please.

Here is what I want.....
I want to be able to watch cable tv in a window on my computer.
I want to watch independently from the "tv" in the room.
I would like to be able to record my favorite shows and play them back later on my computer.

Is this possible all in one unit?
In your opinion... which one is the best one to accomplish this?

Thanks for the help!

Enigmachine · Rated NC-17 Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 122

What makes you think you can't achieve this with a simple capture card like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR150?

(I mention this card because it's a good starting point, you can find cards with better pictures, better drivers, etc, but for a hardware encoding card it's a common one.)

dadx2mj · Posted: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:18:12 Post Subject:

Yeah just a TV Tuner card will do it. I have a Winfast XP 2000 that does all that with ease. Mine gets it signal from a cable split off from the TV so it is tied to the same show as on the TV but if I ran it's own cable to it instead it could be on a separate channel than the TV is.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:04:12 Post Subject:

Yep, TV Tuner card, and if you want added functionality you can use Windows MCE (Media Center Edition).

DragonMaster · Rated NC-17 Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 134

If you don't want to spend a lot, there's a cheap Asus card with lots of bundled software.

If you don't matter to spend more or if your computer is too slow (post your specs)
you could go with an ATi theater 550 - 650 based card that does hardware encoding (much less CPU use)

Then, there's HDTV cards, but since you have cable, there probably isn't much content in HDTV available for you. (Antenna TV wins this time!) But this might change and if you want future compatibility it may be worth it, but these cards are pretty expensive so it's better to wait.

Finally, there are dual tuner cards. If you want to watch TV and record something else at the same time, you need either two cards or a dual card. (Cheaper, less PCI slots)

**JimBowy** · Moderator Joined: 02 Aug 2003 Posts: 1627

Jason (BigBruin) did a review on such a card....

mrweasel · Posted: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:37:29 Post Subject:

there's also some fine free "media centre" apps out there, just Google

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

Lots of things to consider for this...

The tv tuner card is a must obviously...you can get internal or a USB model. Big Bruin did a review of a USB model, I did one of a PCI model.

Software, many of them come with some sort of software to do TV viewing, and some to do recording. The recording aspect of it you need to decide what kind of recording. Like a DVR? If so, you'll want to find one that includes a TV guide option. Again, there are many of them out there.

Windows Media Center is great, I'm using it curently, but will probably be going back to Snapstream in the next few weeks. There are things about MCE that drives me up the wall.