Need help making TV on my PC?!?

[markjs]

OK, what I want to do is fairly simple in principle, but I have lots of complications, and this is something I do not deal with so I am clueless!

We have DirecTV, not high def, but it's a DVR. What I want is somehow to run the DVR signal to both our TV and my PC and have the feed synch. I tried using the composite on the TV and coax to a TV Tuner card in the PC but it was out of synch and the two are close enough together it just made insane barely intelligible racket. I was thinking the easiest way would be to run a splitter off the output (coax), to both the PC and TV, but I was somewhat concerned with signal loss, but this presents another problem.

Since this was first attempted I have switched from XP to Vista. I bought this wonderful and at the time expensive ATI 650 TV Wonder (PCI), but as far as I can tell ATI offers no support for Vista and last I checked they said the will not offer any, ever. The software can be installed and run on Vista but it crashes constantly and it is not worth it. I really have little understanding of TV Tuner cards, and all I want is to be able to easily use the PC as a TV when needed, and if need be be able to run it, and the TV simultaneously without an echo effect.

I am really pissed at ATI and the way they name their Video cards I am about to never buy an ATI product again because it's rocket science trying to figure what I have, and how it compares to Nvidia stuff which has some "logic" at least enough I can figure it out, and perhaps harder still to figure how it compares to other ATI stuff. The insult added to the injury though, is them not supporting Vista with this tuner, it's damn near inexcusable! I would love third party software if I could get it free, and if it's cheap I still might like it, otherwise anyone want to buy the card?

I got one other problem to add to the mix too! I have a micro-ATX board with two PCI slots and my video card is so big it blocks one. If there was a relatively inexpensive way to do it and get rid of the tuner card, I am all ears, because there are other things I could use the PCI slot for.

So if anyone had any ideas I'd be very appreciative to hear them!

 

[Noubourne]

I am not aware of anything out there that will let you do this synchronized - because, quite frankly - it seems like a very weird requirement. Turn off your PC volume or something. A/V devices have a hard enough time synching up the audio and visual, without adding multiple outputs to the mix.

For synchronization - i would say forget it.

If you just want to be able to do it, then you've already got that solved. To make it even more portable, there is a Slingbox. People use these with mobile phones to watch shows live or off the DVR, and you can also use it to watch your DVR and live DirecTV feeds on any computer from anywhere in the world. It's cool as sliced milk.

 

[heyheybooboo]

You can't run the signal through the DirecTV tuner (and DVR) and then through the ATI tuner - nor can you run the satellite signal directly to the ATI tuner because the signal modulation is different.

On the back of the standard receiver is a USB port that is reserved for 'future use'. That future use would most likely involve a stream to your PC. Your standard DVR has no such connection however the HD DVR has 1 USB port, 2 Ethernet ports and 1 eSATA HDD Interface.

Yah ain't gonna get anything fer free from DirecTV

Using an Ethernet port you may stream a signal from the HD DVR to your router. I don't know if you may stream from both ports. You must use their DIRECTV2PC ""beta"" software.

Nor can you record to the eSATA HDD Interface and then connect the drive to your PC because of their signal encryption. Who knows? Maybe someone will hack their way to it in the future but I wouldn't count on it.

I would also be uncertain that you could 'sling' the stream from your DVR because of DirecTV's trickery but I don't really know ... you may want to look at the Hauppauge HD PVR for a solution. I doubt it will help you with the ""synchronization""

And the ATI TV Wonder 650 should work with Vista Home Premium - sorry you are having trouble with that ....

 

[markjs]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
You can't run the signal through the DirecTV tuner (and DVR) and then through the ATI tuner....

That part is wrong. This is how I know it's out of synch. You run the coax from the output of the DVR and to the input of the tuner card and it works fine. Remember that this card is a digital card (actually I am not sure that has anything to do with it). I know though that you can't run the dish into the tuner card.

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo....And the ATI TV Wonder 650 should work with Vista Home Premium - sorry you are having trouble with that ....

I have Vista Business and the problem is, what software do I use to view through the card? The ATI software that came with the card is very unstable with Vista. Is there software within Vista that allows me to access the card?

 

[heyheybooboo]

I don't believe that Vista Business has MCE so the ATI drivers may not be playing nice with your rig because of some missing files.

If you can find a copy of the Win7 Premium beta you might be able to set up a dual boot and use MCE. The Vista MCE drivers are most likely superior to the ATIs and might address that problem.

I guess I don't understand your issue with the DVR --> PC sync thing. You get a clean signal but when you try to also hook it up to the TV the audio/video goes out of sync?

Or do you mean what is playing on the PC is not in sync with the TV?

 

[markjs]

Thanks for trying, but I guess I need to try harder to explain. It has been AMAZINGLY hard to explain, and I guess it's so simple or something, that you are probably trying to over complicate. (No offense I posted this on two BBSs and they are also having a hard time understanding what I mean).

I can get the Computer to work as a monitor by running coaxial cable, (of which there is only one output on the DVR) from the DVR to the tuner card. The I used the composite, (yellow, red, white) in to the TV, since the TV has both coaxial and composite inputs (no s-video or anything though). When both are playing a show one is a second behind the other and the TV and computer are on opposite sides of a wall (a small bedroom off the living room). So it is impossible to run both without hearing both, in both rooms, and it's would probably drive the average person legally insane within an hour of trying to watch TV like that!

I am betting, that if the composite could go out to both the TV and PC, there would be no synch issue and I also would be willing to bet the same would be true if both were fed by the coax and a splitter. I could be wrong but all I am trying to figure out is what possible options, (cheap as possible) might resolve the issue?!?

I am sure a two into one coaxial splitter is the cheapest option, but I'd rather not even have to buy one if someone could tell me if it had any chance of working or was unlikely to first. I also would like to know of any other ways (even if more expensive to run the output of a DVR into the PC without the damn TV card since I have no PCI slots.

It would also be the cherry on top to have some ideas on how the TV card could be made to work with my legally licensed copy of Vista.

Thanks again, sorry I am so frustrated. It's not personal, and I do appreciate your help immensely.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Most likely even if you split the same signal to the TV and PC the PC software will buffer the signal and cause a delay compared to the TV. IF you can get this to work how you want it you will probably have to use Dscaler to bypass this buffer and maybe get an older analog tuner Dscaler supports natively. You would probably have an easier time splitting the signal after the PC. DVR goes into PC alone, PC gets split to monitor and TV.