Media Center use for TV & Internet

[Geoff]

I want to get a computer with an LCD screen and use it for both browsing the
internet and digital cable tv where some channels are high definition.

I did some research and the high end tv tuner cards want the cable plugged
into them directly. The cable companies encode some of their channels and
having the cable plug directly into the card, some of the services are not
available, like selecting a movie to watch.

I much prefer a card where the cable goes into the cable box and the box is
connected to the tuner card. That means the tuner card sits at channel 3 or
4 and displays whatever the cable box feeds it.

However, the back of the high def cable box has, for output, the ypbpr and
dvi connections. So, really, I would need a tuner card that has dvi/audio
input ports.

Has anyone done this, where they kept their cable company box and fed the
signal into a high def card?

Thanks.

-g

 

[johns]

Ask Rod Speed. Join our jargon thread. My guess is
you should wait a bit for the Asian dual input tv-tuner
cards to get here over the next few months. I really
don't know how the HDTV software works. Maybe
you tell it you are "capturing" from an external
device. My ATI tv-tuner can operate like that for
cameras, tape drives, etc. That is just S-video.
Maybe the digital dual input cards will allow that
for HDxxx ? My video card .. 7900 GTO ... claims
to be HDTV ready. What the heck is that? Can
I capture digital tv directly into it as well ... say,
with Win Media Player ???? I'm sure I need a
weird cable from Walmart.

johns

 

[Rod Speed]

Ask Rod Speed.

I dont bother with cable, so I dont know.