I’m getting seriously tired of paying $100 a month to DirecTV. Dark2Phoenix was nice enough to set up a home theater PC for us, so we can now watch Netflix Instant stuff, Itunes, Hulu, etc. on our TV. But before ditching the satellite, I really would like the ability to get network TV and record it in a somewhat streamlined fashion.
So, is it doable, and what would we need?
From my limited knowledge, I’m thinking the shopping/to do list includes:
Antenna and tuner(s)
Computer to run software
Freevo or something
Various and sundry cables to connect it all
We already have a wireless keyboard to use as a remote.
Thanks for you help!
Look at the ATI TV Wonder card (or, if you don’t meet the requirements for that card, check out their helper thingy to pick something different). That particular card comes with “tv guide” software, too.
AND…if you use an ATI card, you can ditch the keyboard and use their Remote Wonder for one-handed control (note you may have to buy this on eBay or something, might be hard to find new in the store). Cyberlink also has a remote but it is more centered around the PowerDVD software - which isn’t bad software if you’re into it.
I used to use my PC as a DVR. I had installed an ATI All-In-Wonder card as a combo TV tuner/video card and at first I used the software provided by ATI. Later I bought SnapStream BeyondTV software. (Both running under Windows XP.) There is software built into some versions of Windows Vista to do DVR functions. And if you like Linux, MythTV is free, open source and gets good reviews.