tv tuner

[Journer]

is there any dual-tuner tv card that can watch/record digi tv like dvr?

 

[Bateluer]

Many, ATI makes several. Hauppage makes some good ones too.

 

[darkswordsman17]

It depends on exactly what you mean.

If its digital cable, and you want it to be like your cable box is, then no.

The reason is that cable and satellite companies encrypt their feeds and I don't believe they allow the sale of tuners that can decode them (as they want to force you to use their stuff).

If you just want some of the main hi-def channels (basically ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and maybe FOX), then yeah. You'll need a clear QAM capable tuner (its unencrypted cable feed). If you have cable it absolutely has to feature QAM support, as ATSC is just for OTA.

Its possible that you might live close enough to a tower that you might be able to get those, its at least worth looking into.

Oh, and as far as I know, there aren't any cards that feature dual tuner support for that.

However, you might mean just the regular channels (even if you have digital cable, if you hook up a TV tuner, it will only decode the analog channels and none of the encrypted digital ones), which there are plenty tuners that can handle that.

Hope that helps.

 

[nullpointerus]

HD and digital are two different things. Analog/digital are the methods used to carry the signal from the cable company to your TV whereas SD/HD are the quality levels of the actual programming. I think cable companies do require a digital subscription before they'll hook you up for HD, though.

For digital SD, you can use the Hauppauge PVR-500 MCE with two cable boxes. If you order the optional I/O bracket from Hauppauge, the card will take up two slots and provide two full sets of S-Video/composite inputs. Connect the cable boxes to those inputs, tune to channel 3 or 4, and you've got TV on your desktop.

The only problem is changing channels. If your cable boxes support serial cables - you'll have to google the model number to find this out - then that's probably the way to go. Otherwise, you'll need to get two IR blasters like the USB-UIRT. You point your remotes at them to teach them the signals, then they'll be able to communicate with the cable boxes.

I'm going to be doing this very soon. EDIT: unless I can get working QAM configuration on my SageTV boxes.

For HD, from what I hear the best way to get cable HD into your computer is through a firewire connection. You have to request a special firewire-equipped HD box from your cable company, connect it to your computer, and then use some tricks to make channel-changing work over the same firewire cable.

You can get more information about this stuff on a HTPC forum BTW.