Post by John D99Is there a card that can used in a pc (using Win XP) that can receive
digital broadcast TV signals, and save them to a hard disk?
What are the factors involved, and roughly what do these things cost?
Thanks
http://www.hdtvcolorado.com/ (Denver etc.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_tuner (OTA = over the air)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner ("clear QAM" from cable)
(encrypted channels are different)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CableCARD (helps with encrypted/scrambled cable content)
This list would have some examples. There are various interface
types. Some have USB2 interfaces and plug into a USB2 port.
Some have a PCI connector. Some have a PCI Express x1 connector.
There are cards for notebooks (ExpressCard). Notice the poor
overall review ratings of some of these.
ATSC / ClearQAM / NTSC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380047+1148542844&Subcategory=47
ATSC is over the air digital. ClearQAM would be unencrypted cable.
NTSC is the old analog television which will soon be turned off.
Cards with a MCE rating, that stands for Media Center Edition.
The card may be used as a tuner for some version of Media
Center. Vista, for example, has Media Center built in. For
WinXP era, there is a version of OS which is the Media Center
version.
There are also applications which function as a kind of media
center, recording broadcasts at scheduled times. Most of these
will require a "TV guide" feed, which is a digital version of
a TV guide which tells you when a particular program comes on,
and on what channel. This would allow you to record every
instance of Wheel Of Fortune that you could receive on your
channels, if that is what you wanted. The "guide data" usually
has a monthly charge. There have been free ones, but they didn't
last. There was also a group that formed a kind of
co-operative, where the more members they got, the cheaper
it could get. I wouldn't expect any of those schemes to compete
with a commercial provider of such. You can always run without
a guide, if you happen to know the channel, day and hour of
the broadcast in question. I tested MythTV on a Linux box
for a short time, without guide data. (With my short
attention span, it was just too much work, to watch
TV :-) I dumped it.)
For something a little different, this one connects to your
wired Ethernet network. It doesn't have an analog tuner, so
won't receive the older signals. And like any cable company
content which is encrypted, it cannot deal with that either.
I guess that would make it ATSC / ClearQAM. And
the specs tab on the page says TV Tuner = ATSC(8-VSB) / ClearQAM (QAM64/256).
The number after "QAM" is the constellation (8x8 matrix, or 16x16
matrix)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16815327005
There are some constellation diagrams here, to see the
matrix of points.
http://www.blondertongue.com/QAM-Transmodulator/QAM_defined.php
If you need a forum that discusses all manner of viewing at
home, try this one.
http://www.avsforum.com
This is good for some things as well, and has lists of stuff.
http://www.videohelp.com/
Good luck in your research,
Paul