Some questions about TV tuner cards....

[ibex333]

According to the product descriptions, these cards can only record from clear QAM, non encrypted signals. So if I connect the antenna directly to the PC all I will be able to watch and record is stuff like CBS, ABC, etc.... CORRECT?


But what if I connect my PC to my cable box? The box is already acting as a digital decoder for the encrypted channels so if I understand correctly, I SHOULD BE ABLE to record channels like Discovery, History and HBO? (I am subscribing to these off course)

How high are the PC requirements for these things, provided I will only be using this as a DVR and I will probably be recording only 1-2 shows at a time?

 

[Modular]

First off: welcome to the home PVR. GB-PVR is a great app that I use for all my PVR needs. There are also some versions of Linux that have built in programs, but I've yet to mess with them.

To answer your questions: yes, you will only be able to record Clear QAM channels; and yes, using an antenna as you describe will allow you to record those stations.

If you connect your PC to the cable box, you can record whatever channels your cable box can tune in. Generally, people will do this through firewire if their cable box supports it, but the issue with that (as well as using a component/composite setup to capture the cable box signal) is that it won't allow you to record those channels in HD. The only things you can record in HD are going to be the channels that you can tune in through the QAM tuner itself.

As far as requirements go; pretty much any computer will have the bandwidth to capture the HD video, but you need to be sure that you have enough CPU or video card power to decode the HD video file for playback. Typically a dual core processor has enough oomph for that task, but if you want, you can always use a more powerful video card and offload the HD decoding work to it instead of the CPU.

Hopefully that helped a little.

 

[s44]

The lack of user-installable CableCard devices has made this sort of setup either a mess or useless. I'd just buy a HD Tivo or similar device