watching tele on my pc/laptop

bronzie

I know that it is possible to watch tv/satelite on a computer, I was wondering how I can tell whether my pc is able to do this or if there are any add ons i would need to do this

roadster1

What spec is your PC? If its a decent one you could get one of those usb Freeview thingies. I have one and it is excellent but it will not work on my lower spec PC

bronzie

Desktop

Operating systems: Windows XP
Memory: 384mb memory
Hard Drive: 150 gb
Processor: 3000 MHz amd athlon 64

Laptop

Operating systems: Windows XP
Memory: 1024mb
Hard Drive: 80gb
Intel ® Core™ Duo Processor T2300

roadster1

My AMD Athlon 1.6Ghz will NOT run the USB TV

but my 2.3 Ghz P4 runs it quite happily.

Perhaps someone on the board more knowledgeable will assist?

One thing I can tell you is that I used to have a PCI TV card, running on the same ariel, and it suffered from interference from the rest of the electronics in the PC case. The USB Freeview reciever is fine. And thats another point..... unless you are located beside a TV transmitter you will need a decent ariel to get Freeview, not the supplied "twig"

MercilessKiller

bronzie wrote:

Desktop

Operating systems: Windows XP
Memory: 384mb memory
Hard Drive: 150 gb
Processor: 3000 MHz amd athlon 64

Laptop

Operating systems: Windows XP
Memory: 1024mb
Hard Drive: 80gb
Intel ® Core™ Duo Processor T2300

I currently use 2 types of tv cards at university so I can give you a quick low down on different types.

PCI:

The pci card is one you must fit internally yourself. You then plug an arial lead into the back of your pc. Personally, i get perfect terrestrial quality with this card. Fantastic software came with teh cheapest card you could get from PC World.... and it has good recording software with it as well!

Was VERY easy to set up, no problems at all.. worked straight away, easy to tune, no fuss. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

USB / USB 2.0:

Well I also got a digital USB freeview box. This would allow me to plug an arial into the box, then use usb to plug it into the pc.

First of all it was Hauppage. Now they have a good reputation for tv cards, but I thought the software was OTT, took up a lot of memory, found conflicts, and anytime there was a prob you had to COMPLETELY remove all software/drivers and reinstall. Hell of a performance.

When it was working, it was great! Had an auto tune feature, and easy to use controls etc etc.

At University we have aerial points in our rooms. My terrestrial was perfect, but when using the digital usb box i couldn't even received bbc 1/2 or itv! In fact I only got 2 channels, one of which was a shopping one

However, the site which tells you if there's good signal or not says that there is perfect signal where I am. So i tried buying an aerial booster. However this only worstened the matter as I could only get one channel after.

CONCLUSION:

For terrestrial, buy a simple standard PCI card. Can get them for £20 to £40. Easy to install (May seem hard if you've never done it, but a VERY simple 2 piece jigsaw to install a pci card). Easy to install the software. Easy to tune. Works as well as a tv on a pc should.

It also benefits lower spec pc's, but your spec should support any type of tv card without worry.

Hope i helped

Crabman

roadster1 wrote:

My AMD Athlon 1.6Ghz will NOT run the USB TV

but my 2.3 Ghz P4 runs it quite happily.

Perhaps someone on the board more knowledgeable will assist?

One thing I can tell you is that I used to have a PCI TV card, running on the same ariel, and it suffered from interference from the rest of the electronics in the PC case. The USB Freeview reciever is fine. And thats another point..... unless you are located beside a TV transmitter you will need a decent ariel to get Freeview, not the supplied "twig"

What actually happens on the Athlon when you try it - does the problem show up during installation of drivers or is it only when the USB stick is plugged in?

roadster1

Crabman wrote:

What actually happens on the Athlon when you try it - does the problem show up during installation of drivers or is it only when the USB stick is plugged in?

It installs OK but playback is awful, blocky picture, choppy sound, freezing, just not enough processor power. Pity really because I use my other PC for video editing and the USB stick and Premier video software are not compatable with each other so every time I want to do some video editing I have to uninstall the USB Stick TV software and reinstall Premier. Bit of a pain really.

zappahey

You can also pick up a DVB-S card for satellite reception. It will pick up the Free to Air channels on Astra like the BBC and ITV channels (not Ch4&5).

With a bit of research (and dish movement), there is software available that allows reception of foreign movie channels which often broadcast the English soundtrack as well as the foreign one.

MercilessKiller

roadster1 wrote:

It installs OK but playback is awful, blocky picture, choppy sound, freezing, just not enough processor power. Pity really because I use my other PC for video editing and the USB stick and Premier video software are not compatable with each other so every time I want to do some video editing I have to uninstall the USB Stick TV software and reinstall Premier. Bit of a pain really.

Is it digital? If it is that sounds to be bad reception!

Crabman

roadster1 wrote:

It installs OK but playback is awful, blocky picture, choppy sound, freezing, just not enough processor power. Pity really because I use my other PC for video editing and the USB stick and Premier video software are not compatable with each other so every time I want to do some video editing I have to uninstall the USB Stick TV software and reinstall Premier. Bit of a pain really.

MercilessKiller wrote:

Is it digital? If it is that sounds to be bad reception!

Yeah it sounds like that could be the case - I would be very surprised if a CPU such as an Athlon couldn't cope - I'm running a TV card on a P3 800Mhz and it copes fine (although it is an analog, not digital).

Try changing position of the little ariel or something

roadster1

Confused? You will be!

As I understand it the USB Freeview stick type receivers use a lot of the PC processors power to decode the picture stream.

PCI Cards do most of the work on the card.

I have an analogue TV PCI card running on the Alton based PC quite happily.