Watching TV on the computer

lee3276

Hi all how do I go by watching TV on the computer and what software is best to buy

gizmoleeds

Do you mean watching the dubious, low-quality far eastern TV channels which are streamed over the net with things like football matches?

Or watching broadcast TV on a PC with an aerial plugged into it (BBC1, 2, ... etc.)?

lee3276

so i need a aerial

scheming_gypsy

you need a TV card and an ariel.

gizmoleeds

Try here:

http://www.dabs.com/ProductList.aspx?&NavigationKey=11138&NavigationKey=50215&CategorySelectedId=11138

Or this one:

http://www.savapoint.com/savapoint/productinfo.php?prodid=4284&gid=206&cid=1 - this has freeview built in.

Joe_Bloggs

If you go via the aerial (terrestrial) route you have a choice of analogue or digital. You get many more channels with digital but you need to be either close to the transmitter or have a good aerial setup with good line of sight towards the transmitter. Previous, freeview set top box, success is a good sign that you aerial is ok.
Some so called PVR cards have no digital tuner. They can only receive analogue TV signals and video signals from a set top box. Both types of card can record. The PVR card has to transcode the video to MPEG2 very rapidly while the digital card does very little as the broadcast stream is based upon MPEG2 in the first place. You can even get external USB2 versions of digital terrestrial tuners.

I used to watch digital TV that came from my ON digital box. This was via the composite out on the scart connector and through a 'video in' feature of my graphics card.

J_B. (I never mentioned multiplex, QAM, or transport stream once.)

Dennis99

I bought a Kworld v-stream usb freeview box off Ebay for £30 odd to use on my computer and it's been fine. Have a look here, it's a good round-up of pc cards and usb boxes.

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/freeview_receivers.htm#freeview_pc_cards



Screengrab of BBC news24

Hythers

I use showshifter in conjunction with my digital tv card, which is excellent and also doubles as a pvr.

nads

Hythers wrote:

I use showshifter in conjunction with my digital tv card, which is excellent and also doubles as a pvr.

Getting abit advanced there aintcha?! Let the forumite crawl before walking

Leadtek have nice cheapo cards. I've been usignt he WinFast Deluxe for 2 years now - old but works.