Can someone contact me possibly off list even. To talk about PC cards and
which is best for me?
I want the absolute best possible one for Dish Satellite TV, needs to
suppose 2 channels at once, and be able to record to my harddrive, copy to
DvD and all that fun stuff.. FM Tuner is a plus but not really important I
suppose... I heard that Hauppauge was pretty good.. One I forget which, had
poor support, and well I forget now it WAS months ago I was looking.. Well I
finally made the switch to Dish TV and am working on buying a new stereo
system to link my TV and PC together.. To let me do PC stuff and TV stuff
via my PC.. OR play on my TV! I really want this to be super fantastic, so,
please, someone has to have a ton of high end ideas and especially, since it
is my part I need to find out, I need a Card idea! My friend is researching
most of the stereo speakers and receiver and all that, although is leaving
the final decision up to me..
That is why I came here. I know this list has some incredibly smart people
on it, and I want to tap into everyone and get several opinions, perhaps
even start people talking about this for a few days, that would help so much
.
Ken
(I know this is stupid, but, what the heck here we go! Email me at
Hardwaregroup at Nwonknu Hq dot-here net! OR now here's the part that scares
me.. CALL ME at 650-368-5364, and I mean literally any time day or night, I
am often awake until after 7am PST, and since I have to take my pain
medicines every 6 hours anyway, I am usually awake whenever, so.. CALL?)
-------Original Message-------
From: Tharin Olsen
Date: 11/23/2007 12:38:08 AM
To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com
Subject: Re: [H] Satellite PC Card needed
Well playback, ripping, and recording of dvds can be done easily on a PC as
long as you have a DVD-ReWritable drive and the necessary software. Now days
these drives start at $30.
Music can be handled by software like Itunes, Windows Media Player, Media
Monkey, Winamp, etc. If you are going to use a nice receiver for audio you
might look for a motherboard or soundcard with an optical or coaxial SPDIF
output.
You didn't mention which satellite dish system you are using??
Technically a feed from something like DirectTV and Dish Network can't be
decoded by anything other than their own receivers because the streams use a
proprietary encryption. Since you must use their receiver to decode the
signal, you could get by using any method that would allow input from an
analog video (s-video, composite, or coaxial) + audio source into the PC.
This could be a PCI, USB, or Firewire capture/tuner card from the likes of
Hauppauge, ATI, Avermedia, etc.
Check this link on newegg.com for some ideas
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=47
In order to decode the signal straight from a satellite dish you would need
a DVB-S card. These DVB-S cards are mostly intended for use with FTA
(Free-to-Air) broadcasts. TwinHan is probably the most popular manufacturer
of this type of product at the moment. (http://www.twinhan
com/product_satellite.asp) - - I know some people have had some success in
getting DVB-S cards to decode streams from DTV and Bev/Dish but I don't
think you'll get any help with this on the list. Not publicly at least :)
Since I'm not doing any recording from my Dish Network sat receiver in my
home, I just use a Slingbox so I can watch and control my sat receiver from
any PC in the house. The three problems with a Slingbox is that only one
computer at a time is allowed to log in, the picture quality is not stellar
since it is being transcoded and streamed, and the slingbox software doesn't
let you capture the stream. I think the latter problem can solved with 3rd
party software though.
If I had not already built my own HTPC or felt I needed something that was
wife proof, I would be much more likely to go with something like an AppleTV
(<$200 on fleebay), modded Xbox, or one of the other UPNP media devices
available from D-link, Linksys, Netgear, etc. With something like this you
can stream media (music, video, online radio) stored on your PC to a set-top
box that is made to just play media files and nothing else. On the other
hand these devices are meant for playback on a TV which may not fit what you
are looking for...
Uh hrmm... Ever consider replacing your existing monitor with a LCD TV and a
Tivo??? :)
-Tharin O.
K Humrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hello everyone!
I am working on changing my room with all new speakers, tuner/DVD, and a PC
Card for Satellite TV.. Well everything needed to allow me to run the line
in from the Satellite dish, and be able to play TV/Music/DvD on my PC OR on
my TV, and use a PC card so I can store everything on my PC's harddrive,
write things I like to DvD's and so on..
<snip>
