internal tv tuner

[padyboy]

I am seeking an internal tv tuner as my 25" jvc tv is about to croak. Still has great picture, though.

I have HP Pavillion desktop, Win 7 Home Premium, 3.0GHz, 4GB ram, 640GB hd, an open PCI Express slot on my motherboard.

According to our local cable provider, I must use their DVR to locate channel, and for programmed recording. Thus the computer tuner would only be used on ch 3 or 4 (like in the old days) to connect with computer.

I would appreciate any suggestions anyone might have regarding specs and desirable features.

 

[profdlp]

I would recommend looking for one that comes with an IR Blaster. They will cost you about $20 more than one without it but if you plan to use Windows Media Center it greatly simplifies the setup process. I have the WinTV-HVR-1250 and it is decent for the price. I wish I had gone for the WinTV-HVR-1600 with the IR Blaster, though.

I have not used one, but people I have talked to who went for a USB-based device like the fact that it's (usually) easier to install and is easily moved to a laptop if you decide you want to do that down the road.

The super-expensive TV Tuner cards probably won't give you a better picture, just more choices when it comes to Inputs and Outputs, Cable Card capability (if your cable company offers that) and sometimes multiple tuners for recording one channel while viewing another.

 

[padyboy]

Thank for your comments.
My cable provider has said that even with a separate tv tuner in my cpu, I will still need their dvr box to watch tv on my computer.
Thus the computer tuner will serve only to modify the dvr output for use by the tv tuner in my computer. It seems this is not a common situation in other places.
Therefore to have the hardware you suggest would probably be redundant in my situation, wouldn't it??? I would already have dual channel recording available, plus watch a prerecorded program.
Do you see any advantage in having a second recording capability?
How did you connect your computer to your cable signal??

 

[profdlp]

Thank for your comments.
My cable provider has said that even with a separate tv tuner in my cpu, I will still need their dvr box to watch tv on my computer.
Thus the computer tuner will serve only to modify the dvr output for use by the tv tuner in my computer. It seems this is not a common situation in other places.

The cable card I referred to earlier basically turns the internal TV adapter into a replica of the cable tuner, minus the hard drive which is what makes a DVR different from a simple cable box. Not all cable companies offer them. You would also need a TV card with a slot for the cable card to fit into.

CableCARD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Therefore to have the hardware you suggest would probably be redundant in my situation, wouldn't it??? I would already have dual channel recording available, plus watch a prerecorded program.
Do you see any advantage in having a second recording capability?

If all you want to do is watch a show at the time of your choosing, the DVR is more practical in my opinion.

If you have a portable player of some sort or have any inclination to build up a massive collection of recorded video then having it go straight to your computer hard drive will simplify the process. For instance, a recorded program on your computer hard drive could be transcoded into another format for your iPod, Zen, cell phone, tablet, or whatever. A (free) program like Format Factory makes it fairly easy to do. DVRs can fill up quickly, at which point you either delete something or lose the capability to record something new.

None of this is a "right-and-wrong" type of thing - it just depends on how you want to use the data.

How did you connect your computer to your cable signal??

I have a cable box which runs to the TV tuner card. My TV card permanently sits on Channel 4 and takes whatever the cable box is spitting out. I've discovered that I like the Windows Media Center software better than the WinTV that Hauppage gives you, so in my case the IR Blaster would allow me to use the program info Windows Media Center downloads on a regular basis instead of always seeing the info for Channel 4 - no matter what channel I happen to be watching. This is not a big deal, but I would have paid the extra $20 for it had I known.

In brief, the TV card stays tuned to Channel 4 and I use the cable box to change channels.

As for the "massive collection of recorded video", I have a DVR on the "real" television downstairs and a DVD Recorder to make my own DVDs. The world is changing and I see physical media disappearing for the most part (except for a "niche" group of users), but I still like to have my collection on a shelf where it can't be made obsolete due to a change in copyright law, etc. I don't do the video conversion thing because I don't want to buy a boatload of hard drives for digital storage (and their backups), nor do I want to watch Star Wars on a cell phone's postage stamp screen.

 

[padyboy]

tv tuner

As I understand your situation, you use the cable box (not a DVR) to send the tv signal to your computer tuner. You use Win Media centre for watching tv live, not for recording?

I have my DVR currently connected to my "real television" so that I am not forced to watch the idiotic and plentiful commercial advertising. However, with football season ending soon, there will be little I am interested in watching. If my 25 year old tv croaks, I wish to be able to switch the DVR to my computer for occasional tv viewing.

It is annoying that I cannot simply record tv on my computer; after all, it is a "digital" signal. This situation has become more complicated then I had expected.I must be sure I am getting the correct apparatus.

It appears that since I have to go through a cable box anyway, I may as well get a lower-priced tuner to process the signal from the DVR. So I would not need the card you mentioned to change channels by IR signal?

I am still confused at this point. Any further info would be appreciated.

 

[profdlp]

As I understand your situation, you use the cable box (not a DVR) to send the tv signal to your computer tuner. You use Win Media centre for watching tv live, not for recording?...

Exactly.

It appears that since I have to go through a cable box anyway, I may as well get a lower-priced tuner to process the signal from the DVR. So I would not need the card you mentioned to change channels by IR signal?..

It does make setting up Windows Media Center a little easier, but I've lived without it for several years now. Basically, WMC assumes that you are going to be recording stuff and wants to make sure it can set the cable box to the correct channel. You wouldn't want to set your recording for 6:30 on Sunday February 5th because you had to work and didn't want to miss the Super Bowl, then come home to find you'd left the cable box on another channel and had recorded three hours of Paula Deen's Home Cooking. The way I got around this was to lie to WMC and say I didn't have a cable box. It then merrily finished the setup process with no further trouble.

If you stick with the software that comes with the card you won't have to do any of this.

The cable box/cable card requirements are basically an attempt to combat piracy. If they made it too simple to record shows straight to your computer it would be just as easy for you to upload them somewhere and "share" (as in abet theft) them with others. Then throw in the fact that you could order basic cable and it would take about five minutes for someone to write a crack that would open all the premium channels (HBO, PPV, etc) and you can see the problem.

From what you describe, I think a simple and inexpensive card would serve you well. If you find yourself really hooked on the TV-on-your-computer business you can always upgrade to something that does everything you need - and by then you'll know what "does everything you need" entails.

 

[padyboy]

gov't pressure

It appears that the pressure put on the government by the billionaire hollywood movie greeders is having an effect. It will be easier to sue cable prividers than to go after individual "pirates". Thus the cable companies are already bowing to the future threat of these lawsuits.

The creeps in hollywood love digital technology when it means they can get paid several times for the same prduct. They despise the digital format when the real, not-so-wealthy people are using it to our advantage.:devil:

I used to have a 'universal decoder' when I lived in southern California. It was great-I got every channel (ppv, pay-through-the-nose tv, etc) at no extra charge.

I guess these cable 'providers' are in cohoots (?) with the greeds in hollywood to restrict our access. These people can never get enough money out of us. Hopefully, digital technology will soon strike one for the little guy.

Thanx for your info. I got a reply from my cable strongly advising me, in a not-so-subtle way, against getting a tv tuner card for my computer. However, like movie downloads, it is not illegal yet.

 

[profdlp]

Besides their desire to keep control over the issue, cable companies make more money by pretty much forcing you to rent their cable box. If they only charge $3.00 a month but have a million subscribers with an average of two cable boxes each then that amounts to $72,000,000 a year.

I can't really blame them for fighting piracy. If it became well known that Cable Company _______ made it easy to swipe stuff then the studios and networks would be coming after them pretty fast. For that matter, if stealing it got so widespread that everyone did it then their would be no incentive for anyone to produce new content. Who would make a $35 Million movie if they weren't going to make a dime off it?

I'm sure another reason they recommend against tuner cards is that they probably get a lot of support calls from people who are blaming the cable company for their lousy picture when it is actually the users fault for not having it set up right. I know that the last time I moved I wanted to set things up myself and had to pretty much threaten to drop cable altogether before they stopped insisting that I have someone come out and hook it up for me. I was moving two miles down the road, had the same cable company, same service, same cable modem for the Internet, same TVs and computers, etc, and had talked to the previous tenant to make sure the outlets all were wired correctly. I was supposed to drop everything off at their warehouse when I moved out of the old place, then wait three weeks for an appointment and take a day off work so they could bring the stuff back and hook it up for me.

 

[padyboy]

computer tv tuner, cont'd

"Besides their desire to keep control over the issue, cable companies make more money by pretty much forcing you to rent their cable box. If they only charge $3.00 a month but have a million subscribers with an average of two cable boxes each then that amounts to $72,000,000 a year"

-I agree completely. In my city the cable company has a monoply. They can screw us over to the extent, and our only option is to cancel the service.

"I can't really blame them for fighting piracy. If it became well known that Cable Company _______ made it easy to swipe stuff then the studios and networks would be coming after them pretty fast. For that matter, if stealing it got so widespread that everyone did it then their would be no incentive for anyone to produce new content. Who would make a $35 Million movie if they weren't going to make a dime off it?"

-My intention is to replace my tv with this desktop when the tv croaks. I have only standard cable. I can already record with their dvr box already, with 250GB storage space. Since they have forced me to pay for this cable box, there is no need to record to my hd. According to what I have read, "stealing" is already so widespread that the hollywood people are forcing gov'ts to pass laws to protect them.
I think the movie and television programs produced today are total crappe. It causts $35 million to make a movie mostly because they are paying mediocre actors like tom cruise and julia roberts $20M for a few weeks of work. They need to get on the austerity bandwago like the rest of us and start cutting
costs.


"I'm sure another reason they recommend against tuner cards is that they probably get a lot of support calls from people who are blaming the cable company for their lousy picture when it is actually the users fault for not having it set up right."

-I am certain you are correct. I have gone through 2 cable boxes already due to faulty "refurbishing". I believe that they caused these problems whan they disabled much of the circuitry in the device to prevent it's intended use my the manufacturer.

Thank you for the response. However, I am still searching for a compatible tv tuner.
Further recommendations would be welcomed.

 

[padyboy]

P.S. I am outraged that my cable has a monoply in our area which allows them to show their customers this attitude and get away with it. No free market here.

 

[profdlp]

...I am still searching for a compatible tv tuner.
Further recommendations would be welcomed.

It might be good to link to a few models you are considering. That we we could discuss their specific differences instead of just general features.

 

[padyboy]

tuner list

Thanx for thhe suggestion. I shall commence to makin' a list.
Be back soon.

 

[padyboy]

Thank for your comments.
My cable provider has said that even with a separate tv tuner in my cpu, I will still need their dvr box to watch tv on my computer.
Thus the computer tuner will serve only to modify the dvr output for use by the tv tuner in my computer. It seems this is not a common situation in other places.

The cable card I referred to earlier basically turns the internal TV adapter into a replica of the cable tuner, minus the hard drive which is what makes a DVR different from a simple cable box. Not all cable companies offer them. You would also need a TV card with a slot for the cable card to fit into.

CableCARD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Therefore to have the hardware you suggest would probably be redundant in my situation, wouldn't it??? I would already have dual channel recording available, plus watch a prerecorded program.
Do you see any advantage in having a second recording capability?

If all you want to do is watch a show at the time of your choosing, the DVR is more practical in my opinion.

If you have a portable player of some sort or have any inclination to build up a massive collection of recorded video then having it go straight to your computer hard drive will simplify the process. For instance, a recorded program on your computer hard drive could be transcoded into another format for your iPod, Zen, cell phone, tablet, or whatever. A (free) program like Format Factory makes it fairly easy to do. DVRs can fill up quickly, at which point you either delete something or lose the capability to record something new.

None of this is a "right-and-wrong" type of thing - it just depends on how you want to use the data.

How did you connect your computer to your cable signal??

I have a cable box which runs to the TV tuner card. My TV card permanently sits on Channel 4 and takes whatever the cable box is spitting out. I've discovered that I like the Windows Media Center software better than the WinTV that Hauppage gives you, so in my case the IR Blaster would allow me to use the program info Windows Media Center downloads on a regular basis instead of always seeing the info for Channel 4 - no matter what channel I happen to be watching. This is not a big deal, but I would have paid the extra $20 for it had I known.

In brief, the TV card stays tuned to Channel 4 and I use the cable box to change channels.

As for the "massive collection of recorded video", I have a DVR on the "real" television downstairs and a DVD Recorder to make my own DVDs. The world is changing and I see physical media disappearing for the most part (except for a "niche" group of users), but I still like to have my collection on a shelf where it can't be made obsolete due to a change in copyright law, etc. I don't do the video conversion thing because I don't want to buy a boatload of hard drives for digital storage (and their backups), nor do I want to watch Star Wars on a cell phone's postage stamp screen.

Is the IR Blaster compatible with my DVR box? Probably not.
It appears that I am forced to forego use of an internal tv tuner for recording--at least until some intelligent techno-type again finds a way to beat the greedy monopolysts. I will saty "tuned" for futire developements.

 

[profdlp]

The IR Blaster works just like a generic Universal Remote. The Logitech Harmony® is an example of a Universal Remote. (A top of the line example; you can buy them in the drug store for ten bucks, they're just not as cool.) With those, you either enter a code or manually program the remote to do exactly what the remote from the device manufacturer does.

With the IR Blaster, instead of you having to be there to manually mash the buttons with your fingers the computer sends the signal for you. After that it works just the same.

Example 1 - Manual Remote: You press the 1-1-3 buttons on the remote and then press "Enter". It switches the cable box to channel 113.

Example 2 - IR Blaster: The computer sends a signal down the wire to the IR Blaster which then sends the same InfraRed beam of light to the cable box that pressing the 1-1-3 buttons and then pressing "Enter" would have accomplished had you used the remote. The cable box doesn't know or care how or where the Infrared signal was produced - it just gets the signal and does what it's told.

 

[padyboy]

cable box vs. dvr

I believe that my dvr may be more complex than a 'cable box'. The latter is designed only to change channels. The dvr is designed to also record from 2 channels simultaneously when programmed internally. I don't know how your IR Blaster would know which tuner to change.


Unfortunately, our cable tv/Internet provider, Eastlink Communications, has fixed it so that one must have either a dvr (as I do) or a digital tuner, both of which must be rented from them. I do not think I am permitted to use my own cable box, as in the past. Needless to say, Eastlink has a monopoly here; there is no alternative. However, I will i


There is also a Big Government monster in Canada called the 'Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission' which has been granted the power to essentially determine the programming Canadians are permitted to watch. I am certain that Eastlink has their support with their monopolistic policies.

 

[profdlp]

I believe that my dvr may be more complex than a 'cable box'. The latter is designed only to change channels. The dvr is designed to also record from 2 channels simultaneously when programmed internally. I don't know how your IR Blaster would know which tuner to change...

That's for recording straight to the hard drive built into the DVR. Assuming you can be recording two channels while watching a third, the computer could record whatever is on the third channel. Put another way, you can have the computer record whatever would be on the screen whether you were actually sitting there watching it or not. Some of the more expensive TV Tuner cards have dual-tuners so you could theoretically still record two channels simultaneously. To do that you would need two cable boxes (one for each channel), though.

For my usage, I stick with the DVR/Home DVD Burner combo for recording and just use the TV Tuner in the computer to throw a TV picture on one of my monitors. For instance, I'll have a ballgame going on one screen while surfing the Internet (or even doing actual real live work) on the others.

 

[Sardonicus]

I am seeking an internal tv tuner as my 25" jvc tv is about to croak. Still has great picture, though.

I have HP Pavillion desktop, Win 7 Home Premium, 3.0GHz, 4GB ram, 640GB hd, an open PCI Express slot on my motherboard.

According to our local cable provider, I must use their DVR to locate channel, and for programmed recording. Thus the computer tuner would only be used on ch 3 or 4 (like in the old days) to connect with computer.

I would appreciate any suggestions anyone might have regarding specs and desirable features.

I use the Hauppauge HVR-2250. I simply plug it into my computer and using software like SageTV or MCE, I can record just like a DVR. Usually the channels that you pay for in your package are not encrypted, so a card like the HVR-2250 has no problem recording them, after you assign the channels.

 

[profdlp]

...I use the Hauppauge HVR-2250...

If I were to upgrade My 1250 that is probably the one I would pick.

 

[padyboy]

Thanks for the input.
However, I am still diubtful that I can use an internal tv tuner card with my system. I believe my cable provider, Eastlink, has made that impossible by fixing their dvr signal output.
My goal is to be able to record/watch tv programming on my computer when my television croaks.

Presumably, the dvr output must be analog to be transferred to my crt television. Even with a analog to digital converter, I can see no advantage over simply using the dvr as I do now. I cannot see how the ability to record a previously recorded program (playback independent of both tuners) would be of any use to me.


BUT,
Actually, it would allow archiving of this program on my HD. So perhaps you are correct; there may be an advantage to this setup, if I can get it to work for me. Is it possible the Eastlink jerks could somehow make that analog signal unrecordable?
Hmmmm.....

I am not sure whether to purchase a cheapie tuner card in case the system fails to function, or chance it and get the Hippauge. 1201 WinTV HVR1250 PCI-Express for ~$60 on the Iternet.

In any case, youse have given me a much better understanding of my situation. The more I think about it now, it does make sense to buy the card and use it to transcribe dvr recordings to my computer. I don't think cable provider could/would go to this much trouble, as long as I am paying themfor dvr rental.

I will let you know how it turns out.
Thanx again.

 

[profdlp]

Good luck!