How do I connect my cable box to my computer, instead of my TV?

Factual Questions
1

I pay a lot for cable TV but almost never watch it, mainly because my TV is in a different room from my computer, where I spend most of my time working from home.

I’d like to be able to connect my cable box to my computer so I can watch it on my monitor. It’s a Comcast cable box.

How would I go about doing this? I have a pretty modern desktop computer with a good graphics card. What’s the most economical way? What do I need to make sure I have? Will I also be able to record stuff from the cable box this way?

2

You basically don’t need to. The cable box does the tuning and outputs ready-to-go video. Passing it through the computer would introduce pointless decoding and conversion steps.

What you want to do is have a monitor with more than one input. Connect the computer to the DVI input, and the cable box to the HDMI input. That will share the monitor but eliminate the useless need to run the cable signals through the computer.

The problem, really, is with “I pay a lot for cable TV.” Quit paying for it and go to the streaming/subscription model discussed in many recent threads here.

3

Or they make inexpensive A/B boxes if your monitor only has one input.

I pay a lot for cable too, but it’s worth it to me, as I assume it would be to the OP. There’s a lot of content that is simply unavailable online- like live sports, or TLC network shows, or my favorite show “The Middle”; looking at a channel guide makes it a lot easier finding something to watch than searching a bunch of network web sites and subscription services. That and if Comcast implements data caps streaming HD content 8 hours a day I might bump into them.

4

I think I asked the question wrongly, basically what I really want to do is stream the cable box to my desktop. I want to be able to view it in some application that shows it as a stream. Having another input to my monitor would not allow me to multitask.

5

It’s probably not doable with HDMI due to HDCP copy protection. You’d need to get a tuner card or USB device for the computer and use the analog component inputs. I believe DVR functionality is available

If it were me (and what I did in the same situation) I’d get a second computer monitor just for watching TV.