Watching TV on my pc

Mr Shankly · 01-04-2005, 12:45

Hello everyone. Firstly I didn't even realise there would be 'unofficial' NTL help websites so that is a bonus for me as I have had broadband from ntl for 4 or 5 years I think now at 3 different addresses I have moved to.

I have a question that no amount of web surfing seems to answer (I am frighteningly computer illiterate about some things).

If somebody has a set top box, is there a way to connect said box to their PC so joyous nostalgic programmes like bullseye can be viewed and recorded on the pc?

Or is there a way to connect the white box on the wall to a pc to get tv pictures on it?

I have heard mentioned TV cards, graphics cards and something called a splitter. I have a white ntl box on the wall that the broadband wire from my pc goes to.

My pc is:

AMD Athlon 2600+, 512mb ram, two hard drives 120Gb and 160Gb and a Nvidia Geforce4 MX440 graphics card.

Any help or advice would be great.

paulyoung666 · 01-04-2005, 12:50

hi and

to the site , you certainly can , you would at least be able to take the rf output from the box and connect it up to the tv card , or you could take the scart output and assuming the tv card has an s-video input , you could get an adapter to go from scart to s-video as i have done with my skybox

Mr Shankly · 01-04-2005, 13:11

Ta for the quick reply m8. Here's me thinking you could just sing songs about wherever you lay your hat thats your home.

You are well cleued up on pc's also m8!

So I guess I need a tv card (any tips ona good un' m8?) and a scart to s-video adaptor?

Cheers

paulyoung666 · 01-04-2005, 13:30

the tv card i am using is a 3rd hand hauppauge jobbie , it does what i want it to do , i.e. watch tv on the pc

, if you have an aldi near you they were selling a medion kit with 10m s-video cable , 10m stereo phono cable and a scart vhs adapter for Ã‚Â£5 , bargain , i believe they also sell tv cards for around Ã‚Â£20

Mr Shankly · 01-04-2005, 20:24

'aldi were selling some' makes me twitchy that they may not have them!

We can, but try. Thanks a lot paul, I am off to aldi tomorrow.

paulyoung666 · 01-04-2005, 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Shankly

'aldi were selling some' makes me twitchy that they may not have them!

We can, but try. Thanks a lot paul, I am off to aldi tomorrow.

i think the tv cards are a long term thing whereas the pc's and some other bits are 2 week offers , i mmight be wrong though

homealone · 01-04-2005, 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Shankly

<snip>

If somebody has a set top box, is there a way to connect said box to their PC so joyous nostalgic programmes like bullseye can be viewed and recorded on the pc?

Or is there a way to connect the white box on the wall to a pc to get tv pictures on it?

I have heard mentioned TV cards, graphics cards and something called a splitter. I have a white ntl box on the wall that the broadband wire from my pc goes to.

My pc is:

AMD Athlon 2600+, 512mb ram, two hard drives 120Gb and 160Gb and a Nvidia Geforce4 MX440 graphics card.

Any help or advice would be great.

connecting cable/satellite/aerial to a pc is 'relatively' easy - you need an appropriate TV/capture card in your pc & a suitable signal from the device you want to connect.

like Paul says Aldi have sold the cards.

hauppauge are another one to look for.

mine is built in to an ATI 'All in Wonder' Radeon 9600SE - I use a dvd player/vhs recorder plugged into that, as well as recording to hard disk from my analogue cable box