Recommend a USB TV Tuner

Hi all, i currently have a rooftop ariel and socket in my room and want to be able to watch tv through my laptop rather than a traditional tv.

Can anyone recommend a piece of hardware to achieve this. I am UK based.

Thanks in advance

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Hi there
not sure about the USA but in Europe most non satellite TV is now Digital Terrestial and not analog anymore -- a good usb receiver for this service is the Hauppage WINTV -HVR 900H series or newer.
Advantage with these is they work straight out of the box with the Windows Media Center.

I'm not sure when or even if HDTV will be available via Terrestial service but if you want that and it's available where you live then make sure your tuner can handle it too.

If you want satellite reception then you can get a USB tuner for this service too but you'll only be able to receive the FTA (Free to Air) services from something like Freesat. I haven't yet seen any usb tuners that allow reception of encrypted / pay TV services yet -- I suspect this will be supplied soon via the new Internet TV protocol (bandwidth from ISP's permitting).

In Europe again the SKY GO service supplies things like pay TV / SKY SPORTS - but my experience so far with Internet TV is that it's very disappointing on anything larget than a smallish laptop and it just EATS bandwidth -- the good old days of unlimited bandwidth are disappearing fast -- even if you still have an unlimited service you will get capped after usage reaches a certain value.


http://www.sky.com/shop/tv/sky-go/?DCMP=KNC-

(Outside UK / republic of Ireland use a UK proxy -- works fine)

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks guys for your help.

I've decided to go for the WinTV-NOVA-T-Stick over the HVR series as we no longer have analogue tv here in the UK and the NOVA is cheaper.


Thanks again :)