Racine Chat Forum

[Big Jim]

Anybody use Windows Media Center to watch and record live TV. I am considering ditching cable and I would like to get a good antenna to watch HD broadcasts. The thing I'll miss is recording TV and watching when it is convenient as well as skipping the commercials like I can now do with my DVR for Time Warner.

[winetadm]

I haven't used WMC much, but I have used various other programs and operating systems to record TV. The #1 thing is to make sure you have a way to pipe the video signal out of the computer into a TV. Either some kind of a scan-converter or A TV that can take video input from a computer.

It is possible to get a supplemental video signal out of your computer, either with a video card that supports it or two separate video cards. That supplemental video could be NTSC (Analog standard definition). Though you may have 1 High Def TV you will use most of the time, it is possible to also take that supplemental NTSC video signal and pipe it through an RF modulator and back feed it through your existing cable (once you get rid of cable) allowing you to watch the signal (in standard def analog) on any of your other TVs.

Radio Shack one made a device that would allow you to inject a signal on UHF channel 14 and also on 68. This signal injector allows you to pipe in those channels without messing up your antenna signals. These devices have been discontinued by Radio Shack but do pop up on eBay.

You could have a simulcast of your Computer DVR on channel 14 and one of those HDTV to old TV converter boxes on 68. Plus the regular Standard and HD antenna signals all on one wire.

Of course only the one TV hooked directly to the computer would be HD.