IS there a way for me to watch HDTV signals on my PC? Are there any tv-capture cards that support it, or perhaps software that would let a current tv-capture card pick up HDTV signals? I’ve got an MSI tv tuner, and it’d be great if I could just use this.
Yes, they make a HDTV video card. I think they are about $300+
Here is a completed ebay auction for one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3401558072&category=3761
There’s no way to use your current card to view HDTV, since the tuner part is fundamentally different.
That’s funny you should ask since this news was posted on Slashdot today. For a few thousand dollars you can build a free software tivo-type Linux box. In a short time (years) your desktop CPU will be able to decode the signals in real time. Still very new and obviously needs more work, but the best part is that you can use it to receive all kinds of signals, not just HDTV.
Wouldn’t you need an HDTV capable monitor to view the HDTV signal? That is to say, a standard monitor only has a certain level of resolution…wouldn’t the signal be wasted if the monitor or viewing source was not capable of seeing the higher res?
A computer monitor MORE than supports HDTV resolutions. That’s not a problem. All you need is an HDTV card, on any reasonably modern computer, and it’ll work fine.
Is there a website that will let you, say, enter your ZIP code and it will tell you what HDTV signals you can get? I’ve seen HDTV and it kicks ass, but as far as I know, the only channel in my market that broadcasts it is PBS. I’m not spending $2000 to watch pledge drives in high-def. Can I find out what the deal is?
Titan TV is a pretty sweet program guide site, it will show what programming is available in high def, or in standard definition depending on whether you have cable or satellite, or neither.
As for PC cards that will show you HDTV, at last year’s National Association of Broadcasters convention there was a Korean company showing a card like this, you install it on your computer and plug in a small antenna and you get HD on your PC. The card sold for around $400, but the problem is that the software had a ‘record’ feature, you could press a button and record any HD broadcast direct to your hard drive. Here in the US, where we haven’t exactly sorted out all the digital rights issues associated with HD and digital broadcasting, this wouldn’t fly, so the product isn’t available here yet.
HDTV programs use a lot of HD space, eh?
In my area & alot of the usa it seems, you need rabbit ears to get hdtv programs.
Yes, my querry was prompted by seeing the above-mentioned /. article. I was less concerned with having the HD space (or the rights) to record HDTV shows and more interested in taking advantage on the high-res signal on my PC. As stated above, the average computer monitor has a maximum resolution that can more than handle HDTV. Also, I have a 5.1 setup on my PC, while my long-neglected televsion is still using the speakers that came built-in. I just figured buying a pci card to do the job would be cheaper (even at $400) than buying a HDTV compliant television and a home entertainment system to go along with it. I guess I’ll just have to wait.
And, in the excitement of the prospects of getting a HDTV signal on my PC, I neglected to take into acount the fact that I live in an area which is not in range of one single HDTV broadcaster. Oh well…
I saw ads last week for an HD Discovery Channel, while watching Canadian cable. I’m assuming the American Discovery would have it too.
The MyHD MDP-100 card seems to be the cheapest at about $300, and supports PVR functionality. Note that this is for 8VSB (broadcast HDTV) only, it will not receive QAM (cable HDTV) signals. AFAIK there is currently no hardware available that will allow you to receive cable HDTV signals on your PC; nor is there anything that will take a HiDef signal (either digital or analog; no, not even firewire) and bring it into your PC.
You can find out what signals you can receive at AntennaWeb.
For more info, check out the HTPC forum at www.avsforum.com.
mcbiggins, if you buy a hdtv you usually need a settop hdtv tuner box (another $500 or so)…so does the tv card have this tuner?
Yes, the TV card IS the tuner, whereas the TV part is played by your monitor.
So I could get a HDTV tuner card for my PC and use it to watch broadcast HDTV signals, but I would need to purchase a seperate external decoder box to watch cable or satelite HDTV signals, and have that box output into a standard tv-tuner card?
Sort of. The first part is correct, but what would be the point of outputting HDTV into a standard TV tuner card? You’d be back to standard def TV signals again (although with the 16:9 aspect ratio, where applicable). As I stated in my prior post, there are currently no ways to get a live HD picture onto your PC, other than with an HD tuner card.
Also, most cable providers are providing the HD box as part of the service, assuming they carry HDTV signals, so no additional purchase is necessary. For satellite, you’d have to purchase the box, and, AFAIK, satellite providers are not transmitting local HD signals, so if you get your local stations from the dish, you’ll still have them in standard def.
Yes, I’ve seen ads for Dicosvery HD Theater on the American Discovery channel, too.
Don’t some HDTVs come with tuners built in (for an additional $500 or so)?
OK - since the subject of HDTV has come up…
I have a 40" Sony HDTV (officially, it’s called an KV-40XBR800 40" FD Trinitron® WEGA® XBR® Hi-Scan®) and a ‘special’ digital cable box and a digital cable package with four HDTV channels (two HBO’s & two Showtime’s).
What I don’t have is a real HDTV tuner (available in a wide variety of features and styles) or a digital HDTV recorder (such as the JVC HM-DH30000 which, as I understand it, is one of the few true HDTV recording devices and which has had a $200 price drop in the last month, making it more attractive if it works).
I don’t watch much ‘over-the-air’ programming at all (the local news and… hmm, the local news) so I don’t think I really need (at this time) an HDTV tuner… but I would LOVE to record some of the movies on the HDTV channels that I do get and so my question is…
…does anyone have any experience with the JVC HM-DH30000 or (if there is one) a similar product? Is there any reason I couldn’t use my digital cable box with such a recorder (not needing an HDTV tuner)?
I realize this is a little off topic, but there seem to be some knowledgeable HDTV folks on this thread…
Thanks,
-bbb-
Bear,
The answer is “it depends, but probably not”. To be able to record HD, your cable box needs to have a Firewire output (DVI bandwidth is too high for recording, and there are no HD component->digital converters yet, probably because there’s no affordable hardware that’s fast enough). Also, your cable company needs to enable recording of premium content. That second part is the tough part; since Hollywood is loathe to give anyone the ability to record HD content[sup]*[/sup], it’s likely that you would not be able to record HBO or SHO on D-VHS. You should check with your cable company to be sure (see if there’s a user-supported mailing list set up for them; a fellow subscriber of my cable company - Cablevision - set up a Yahoo group/mailing list, and we have lots of technical folks on it, including a couple of senior CV employees, who give us info not yet available to the general public).
[sup]*[/sup]This will likely change in the near future when integrated HD set top boxes/PVRs become available; however, you still won’t be able to record the program on a removable medium like tape or DVD-R; it would have to stay within the box.
BTW, enabling recording requires setting some sort of flag at the cable company’s head end; it’s not just a hardware issue. Copy protection is a big deal with HDTV, and cannot be easily overridden like Macrovision.