NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

A quick question to those that dabble with the technology provided by NTL (Apologies if it's been asked before - I did a search of the forums and found zilch)

IF you have NTL Digital TV coming through set top box + Broadband Internet, connected to the same set top box - How big a leap is it, to receive the NTL TV pictures on your PC?

Possible or not - Alternative solutions please?

Thanks for reading - I look forward to your suggestions / laughter ;)

P.S. Hello - I'm new here.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

Hi NJC, :welcome:

If you mean, DTV delivered through the ethernet cable - no.

It is perfect possible to add a TV capture card to your PC and capture either the RF bypass feed from the STB (Coax output) or get a Scart to Svideo cable from the second Scart socket on the STB.

Hope that makes sense.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

Thanks for your warm welcome :)

"capture either the RF bypass feed from the STB (Coax output) or get a Scart to Svideo cable from the second Scart socket on the STB."

I really had no idea that this was so easy! I have a capture card on my PC, so cable shopping it is - I really should have investigated the back of the STB more before posting...

Thanks :D

Next time i'm in Minas Tirith, Gondor, I'll buy you a pint!

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

lol - I was on Worthing seafront on Sunday - a stones throw from Brighton.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

thats the thing, it would be possible to take the pure digital DVB transport stream straight off the incoming ts direct to your networked computer with a simple save, but for the fact NTL:tw didnt see fit to include that software standard option in the current STBs.

its possible that they may or NOT add that option from their STB providers in the new NTL version of the current tw TVDRIVE but i wouldnt bet on it.

so as has been said, the only real official option right now is use the old tech option of an analogue TV card video-in (or a TV card that can re-encode in hardware) and some software encoder to save the currently tuned station.

but if your watching any station you can also get on DVB digital freeview then your better getting a USB DVB-T card and using that to record your content as its a direct copy and hence better quality playback.

if your just feeding NTL scart in to your anologue card try a copy of the free 'Dscaler' if it supports your tv card chipset as thats the best picture your likely to get.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

I'd bet the IP output is only 10baseT, a cable Transport stream is approx 38Mb/s so unless they included a de-multiplexer to select only the elementary streams of a particular channel it wouldn't work.
All adds to the cost of an already expensive STB.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

yeah, i guess its possible, but i didnt think the stb makers today, used anything other than off the shelf parts and plug them together like lego LOL, do they even make a 10baseT only network part/chip these days thats cheaper than a bog standard 10/100 full duplex chip?, cant find anything after 10 minutes looking at least.

being the sort that likes to know whats in the kit,i did try several times to find a breakdown of what components and related datasheets for the ntl:tw STB's but didnt find much, you got any related links to read creative ?

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

All excellent and welcome advice - Thank you all.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

...or buy a Slingbox:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=48000

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

I have a Pinnacle USB2 TV Tuner and I connect my Sky Box to the Tuner via a Scart->RCA Adaptor as it gives a better picture quality than tuning to RF.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

Yeah - Though £170 - £180 for SB + cost of router seems "easy but expensive" option
I have the router, but for those that haven't (reading this thread in future) worth making note of.


;)

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

Well with my Method you basically end up with a PVR, the one I have has a remote and you can Pause Live TV and rewind if you turn Time-Slipping on and it uses Div-X as the Codec so the Filesize is small but you really can't tell the difference from the Live Television Picture to the Recording.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

I don't know the intracicies of it all but there are DVB-C cards with a CI module and ProgDVB which can be an option. As I said I don't know the intracicies of how ntl recognise what device can use the network or not but I'm guessing you would have to clone the MAC address of the STB to your DVB-C card for it to work with the CAM on the network. Don't quote me on any of that though ;)

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

All against ntl's T&C's though.

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

Totally yes, but theft of service it is not, so can't really be frowned upon in such a way.

I would have given it a go myself if it weren't for a seemingly easy way round the recording protection on VOD with no cables / boxes ;)

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

another optional box while again not perfect (no AVC and no direct dvb etc), is the MediaMVP
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1579197,00.asp
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/mediamvp_datasheet.htm

for the tech readers this might be interesting
Linux on board: Inside the MediaMVP
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...ary/l-lobtivo/
Linux on board: Blowing the lid off of TiVo
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...ary/l-lobtivo/

if you want a hardware encoder then the cheap & cheerful yuan kit i mention here
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...5&postcount=18
http://www.yuan.com.tw/en/products/vdo_ub680.html
and watch out for that ASP is NOT AVC,

the kit would work, again not a real AVC encoder but they do exist but are expensive right now, so the situation still needs to improve....
and the TiVo people

Re: NTL Digital TV on PC? Possible?
 

There is a difference between taking the analogue output from the STB and removing the STB decoding and analogue conversion by connecting the coax directly to a computer.