On 9/7/2011 11:10 PM, aemeijers wrote:
On 9/7/2011 10:38 PM, wrote:
(snip)
Since I have a DTV converter for my older tv set, is there a way to
pipe that DTV box right into a computer? If so, what sort of card
would be needed on the computer? I wouldn't mind taking an older
computer and making it specific for recording tv programs.

I do NOT have any cable or satellite, just an antenna connected to a
DTV box.


Some people over in the computer or TV groups could give you better
advice, but yeah- just search CL or eBay for a Hauppage (sp?) TV tuner
card for whatever spare PC you have. The non-HD Hauppage cards are going
dirt cheap these days. Depending on the card, you can feed in from the
converter box via coax or the other usual flavor of cables. Downside to
this approach is that the resolution isn't the greatest (at least on the
one somebody gave me), and you have to watch the show on the computer.
I'm no expert- maybe some of them let you pipe it back out to the TV.
And they are pretty piggy on hard drive space, at least by the standards
of older computers.


Much better to go with the HD version Happauge card or adapter. They
aren't expensive. First the quality issue as you noted. Quality will be
much better because those boxes were a kludge to convert DTV to
modulated NTSC. So using the RF input (none of those boxes offer any
other outputs by design) would mean two conversions with the first
having degraded the signal a lot. Second, there is a lot less tinkering
because the popular distros know how to change channels directly using
the Happauge card.