freeview on my computer

[paul11974]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

For that money you can buy a fully functional stb,plug that into a standard tv card using handymans scart. IMO this will give you the best overall quality/features/performance over any digital tv card

IS there a scart lead that goes from scart to rf ?

you do not want to use rf you want to use the svideo or composite

[mrlipring]

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

Maplin have an external digital terrestrial reciever for computers on offer this month....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...rce=3&doy=18m7

I can't say if it's any good or anything.

Just thought I'd mention it.

I'm tempted to get one for my laptop, but I'm not sure.

I've got the pci version of that. It's great. No probs at all. It's well supported, and has bda drivers for mce or whatever.

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

For that money you can buy a fully functional stb,plug that into a standard tv card using handymans scart. IMO this will give you the best overall quality/features/performance over any digital tv card

err... nonsense.

the digital>analogue>digital conversion is obviously lossy. with a dvb-t card you record the transport stream, as broadcast.
you're looking at mssive capture filesizes if you want decent quality from capping.
setting up timers to record etc on a pci card will be far easier and more functional.
You can't timeshift on a STB. You CAN do it via the pc and an analogue cap card, but again the filesizes will be horrendous.

if you intend to record stuff onto a pc, get a dvb-t card/adapter. actually using an analogue capture method will lose quality. Sure, it'll **** on a vhs deck, but go digital!

Like I said in my experience ive never had the same amount of channels as with a set box, If this was just luck on my part then I did say this in my post. So saying what I posted was nonsense is out of order cuz in my experience as I said in my post you only get half the channels with a digital pc card


The op has an analogue card your telling him to buy a new card when theres really no need. I mentioned the stb as an option. If he buys a digital card and it works then all well and done but as ive said in my previous posts on this subject it may not be as simple to set up as you make out
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Do you get all the channels on your tv card as you do on a stb?

[mrlipring]

i get every channel off every mux, yes. different cards have more or less sensitive tuners. USB cards tend to be worse.

It was the same in my old flat too, so unless i've been REALLY luck with existing aerials, my card's a good 'un.

the only difference between a dvb-t card and an stb is that you'll get the TUTV channels with a STB.

a new card IS a necessity if he wants optimum quality and functionality.

it all depends whether he values being able to use it with a TV (which isn't impossible with a pc-based solution by any means) or whether he prefers the option of timeshifting, and pvr ability.

you said it all there. Some cards have better tuners than others,say he follows your advice and unluckily buys a problem card he will be no better off,He has the hardware to try now and see if he is happy or not with the results

As far as im concerned the pvr functions on a pc are software based so any device be it a stb or a internal tuner can timeshift and use full pvr functions,also pretty much every gfx card has tv out so a media centre solution can be achieved with what he has now

[mrlipring]

so you want to go analogue>digital>analogue? Ew.

if he's unlucky and gets a crap card, he can take it back and tell them it's crap. I had two before the one i settled for.

pvr functions are indeed software based, but it's a hell of a lot easier to timeshift a 4mbit dvb stream than it is going to be to timeshift an analogue-captured feed. bear in mind that there's virtually no cpu usage when writing a digital stream to disc, as opposed to heavy cpu usage when ENCODING and capping analogue to digital, not to mention the filsizes being way higher.