TV Tuners

[Menlaan]

I just got a new desktop that has a TV Tuner card installed. I hooked my cable up to it and I'm unable to get the premium channels through it like I can on through my normal cable box. Is there a way to enable these for it or am I doing something wrong?

[Tikker]

what kind of tuner card?

chances are it's an analogue card, and the premium channels are digital

[Tikker]

I just got a new desktop that has a TV Tuner card installed. I hooked my cable up to it and I'm unable to get the premium channels through it like I can on through my normal cable box. Is there a way to enable these for it or am I doing something wrong?

ps, you have to go from the cable box into the tuner card

[Menlaan]

It's the standard Windows Media tuner and receiver I think :MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP MCE REMOTE AND RECEIVER. It came from Cyberpower.

But, I think your second post highlights the problem. So do I just buy a new cable and connect it from the cable box into the PC then?

Thanks Tikker.

[Tikker]

the XP Remote and Receiver are just that

IR blaster and Reciever

I use those with an Hauppauge pvr-150 card, but you could use it with pretty much any Tuner

[Menlaan]

Okay, I'm not sure what the tuner is then. I'll try getting a new cable this weekend. Thanks again for your help.

[ClakarEQ]

You should get basic cable, digital or not through the coax connection. YOu would take the coax cable from your wall and place it directly on the coax connection on your computer.

You will not get anything more then basic cable (no premium)

To get premium you must decrypt the station via the provided cable box. However once you do THIS you do not change your stations on the computer but on the cable box.

With out a "hack" or a tuner card suppored by or supplied by your cable provider, you will not get premium stations on your computer.

If you use the cable box option as tikker and I have described, you aren't really using the "tuner" part of the computer you just bought. If you plug the cable directly into the PC, then you'll be using the TV tuner in the computer.

Tikker or whomever, you can correct any mistakes but I don't think it will work any other way.

[ClakarEQ]

the XP Remote and Receiver are just that

IR blaster and Reciever

I use those with an Hauppauge pvr-150 card, but you could use it with pretty much any Tuner

These to my knowledge though are media center components and essentially do what I noted in the second part of my post. In other words you change the stations on the cable box (you just don't know it because the IR blaster and reciever integrate directly into the cable box / provider).

[Tikker]

the XP Remote and Receiver are just that

IR blaster and Reciever

I use those with an Hauppauge pvr-150 card, but you could use it with pretty much any Tuner

These to my knowledge though are media center components and essentially do what I noted in the second part of my post. In other words you change the stations on the cable box (you just don't know it because the IR blaster and reciever integrate directly into the cable box / provider).

nope, not how it works


not quite anyways


You got from the cable box, into the tuner card

when you set up the media center, you tell it your source is a cable box

this tells it to look for installed IR blasters

Then when you use the media center remote to change channels, the computer IR receiver gets the signal, then immediately relays it out of the IR Blaster to the set top box

You can just change channels with the STB remote, but if you want to use the channel guide and record from within the media center, you need to use the IR blasters

[Menlaan]

Great info! Thanks for the clarifications. I'm excited to try it out.

[Tikker]

ps, you really need to find out what tuner you have

if you end up with some peice of shit that does everything in software, expect a lot of pain


look around the start menu for anything labelled:

Hauppauge(probably)
Osprey(not likely)
ATI
LeadTek
Sabrent
etc etc

[Menlaan]

Could this be it: ASUSTeK Silicon BDA Video Capture?

[Tikker]

sounds right


if it's the card I think it is, it's about a 40 buck el cheapo software card (ie sucks)

[Menlaan]

that sucks. what will its crappiness impact? the quality of the TV reception?

[Tikker]

well

it might

mostly what it'll do is force the cpu to work overtime

good tuner cards do everything in hardware, so you can run them on really old shitty hardware and get good results

software encoders tax fast cpu, and make life a bit more difficult if you're trying to do anything else while wtching tv

[Menlaan]

okay, that's not too bad I suppose. my computer is brand new and pretty high end so maybe I'll be okay. I'll post an update when I get a cable this w/e

[Menlaan]

As an update, I hooked it up through the cable box and now it seems to work fine. Thanks again!