TV Tuners...

[dawks]

I have Shaw Cable in Canada, with a Motorola 3416 (digital) dual-tuner HD-PVR (160gigs).

To sum it up, I'm pretty frustrated with the box at this point and have been looking at some alternatives.

I have been considering a Win7 Media Center setup, but have a few questions. We don't have cable cards in Canada, so I'd still need to use a box of some sort, so I'm hoping I can find one without the problems im having now.

Are there any cards for a PC that can do HDMI in for TV? Like could I hook up a cable box via HDMI to a computer, and have it record the programs in Media Center? Does Media Center handle full HD? I used to do it with XP MCE, and an ATI Tuner, but that was only analog coax.

Also, how are the boxes that DirecTV use? Do they have Tivo software on them? Would it be a challenge to get a DirecTV box working in Canada?

Just looking for some ideas, Thanks...

 

[RKS]

I have Win7 and a dual tv tuner. I have the coax split before my router. I get free local HD channels from clearQAM. I also get our regular analog (SD) cable stations as well from the other part of the dual tuner.

 

[NorVan75]

I have Shaw Cable in Canada, with a Motorola 3416 (digital) dual-tuner HD-PVR (160gigs).

To sum it up, I'm pretty frustrated with the box at this point and have been looking at some alternatives.

I have been considering a Win7 Media Center setup, but have a few questions. We don't have cable cards in Canada, so I'd still need to use a box of some sort, so I'm hoping I can find one without the problems im having now.

Are there any cards for a PC that can do HDMI in for TV? Like could I hook up a cable box via HDMI to a computer, and have it record the programs in Media Center? Does Media Center handle full HD? I used to do it with XP MCE, and an ATI Tuner, but that was only analog coax.

Also, how are the boxes that DirecTV use? Do they have Tivo software on them? Would it be a challenge to get a DirecTV box working in Canada?

Just looking for some ideas, Thanks...

There are no alternatives short of FOTA, to watch digital/HD you will need a Shaw box, or some other providers box.
You can utilize a Firewire output from the 3416 and capture whatever it is playing, and this works quite well but it is strictly a manual operation.
Until the CRTC allows it and providers implement it, cable cards are not an option in Canada and the only other option is an ATSC tuner card and an antenna.
That will work with OTA broadcast and depending on where you are, may be anywhere from pretty good to pretty awful.
I would like to say that there is an alternative because I also would like something ... better than what we can currently get. But I don't see that happening soon.

As you said, the SD stuff can be had using what you have, but that's about all it can do.

Perhaps someone can add something to this, or even show that I am wrong.