Media Center and NTL

[Vegetunks]

Hey people, been visiting the site for a while and had a question so i signed up!

I've been Beta Testing Windows Vista for the past few years and finaly got my RTM Build licence today! now i've had some time to play with media center and i was wondering if i could hook up my PC to the ntl set top box and using Windows Media Center as a alternative to the oh so poorly designed interface that NTL gives us.
I know stuff like this has been doable in the united states for almost 6 years now and am really intrested in giving it a spin.
My First question is can it be done,
My second question is what hardware will i need
and my last question is when ntl FINALY bring out HDTV will i be able to stream it with no problems?
ive got six 750GB Hard drives sitting in this PC and it's about time they got a work out! lol

Any help would be much appeciated! Thanks

[swissle]

I personally hate the version of Media Center bundled with Vista, I went back to 2005 in a flash. They messed with a perfect interface IMO.

However what you need to put your ntl box through your PC is a TV Card. You will then get a choice of svideo or RF sockets, neither are good quality. The easiest and cheapest is RF, once the card is installed you get more configuration options in media center where it will talk you through setting up the guide and search for signal.

You will also need to purchase an Microsoft Media Center Remote & Reciever which comes with an IR blaster. This might not work if you have an old NTL Pace box, which requires the red eye addition.

Hope this keeps you going for a little while.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Vegetunks

My First question is can it be done,

Sort of.

My second question is what hardware will i need

You will need a TV or Capture card.

and my last question is when ntl FINALY bring out HDTV will i be able to

Not unless you get a Hi def capture card that offers component or hdmi input. I personally don't know of any cards below £3,000 that do this.

stream it with no problems?

Don't know.

[handyman]

RE media Centre, I have xp home on my main pc which I was planning to dual boot with media centre, however can I simply use the disc to install the media centre application over home?

[The Jackal]

Sorry to hijack this thread but my query is kinda relevant.

Has anyone had any success with DVB-C cards as a direct capture source for cable TV ?

[jem]

RE media Centre, I have xp home on my main pc which I was planning to dual boot with media centre, however can I simply use the disc to install the media centre application over home?

AFAIK the answer is no unfortunately, you have to do a clean build of MCE2005

Has anyone had any success with DVB-C cards as a direct capture source for cable TV ?

Possibly; but as you are not allowed by the T&Cs to attach anything to their cable other than the supplied box, I doubt many people will be owning up to doing it

[brundles]

AFAIK you won't be able to use a DVB-C card - part of the STBs function is to decrypt the streams using propriatory encryption. I'm sure there are other reasons to do with the pairing of the card, the STB, etc. but someone else will need to explain them. (Not to mention that using anything except the STB is breaking the T&Cs).

The only way I've seen for Cable is to use an analogue TV capture card and IR blaster.

There are some ways of capturing the FTA Sky channels using a DVB-S card and I've heard of PC systems that can decrypt the full range of channels - again I'm not too convinced about the legal side of that though.

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Edit: Must type quicker...

[jem]

Originally Posted by brundles

There are some ways of capturing the FTA Sky channels using a DVB-S card and I've heard of PC systems that can decrypt the full range of channels - again I'm not too convinced about the legal side of that though.

edit: Must type quicker...

The legality issue is dependent on whether you are getting something for which you are not paying. Suppose, for arguments sake, I managed to hook up a DVB-C card on my media PC to NTL's cable and had some software running which was able to do the decryption so I could view all the channels. As long as I continued to pay NTL a full subscription for the channels when I am doing nothing illegal. I am however in breech of the T&C and NTL could decide to simply cut me off and/or sue me for damages if they decided that my actions damaged or degraded the network - difficult to prove but possible in theory i.e. it is a civil matter. On the other hand if I were to cancel or downgrade my subscription to the bare minumum while still getting all the channels decoded by the PC then I'm now guilty of the criminal act of theft of service.