Need A Little Help

[Consequence_9]

I've got a monitor that only has vga & hdmi inputs and I'd like to take advantage of the cable connection in my room (since my suite-mates are always using the commons tv). Does anyone have a setup like this or anything in particular they'd recommend?

 

[Titcher]

This isn't straight to the monitor, but it is a QAM demodulator, which you could use to decode free cable signals.

 

[Tom`]

Never had cable, but I'm pretty sure you don't get a straight video signal off the cable (you have to decrypt it or at least decode it first). So depending on the format, you could get an HD tuner like this one (there are cheaper ones out there, but Hauppauge is a brand I've had a lot of success with, and they provide Linux drivers for their stuff).

edit: that also handles analog cable, of course, but I don't know which yours is

 

[Sphinxter]

Is it connected to your pc? I use one of these; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116037 works ok, 1080p can lag a bit sometimes.

 

[Consequence_9]

Never had cable, but I'm pretty sure you don't get a straight video signal off the cable (you have to decrypt it or at least decode it first). So depending on the format, you could get an HD tuner like this one (there are cheaper ones out there, but Hauppauge is a brand I've had a lot of success with, and they provide Linux drivers for their stuff).

edit: that also handles analog cable, of course, but I don't know which yours is

thanks, but i forgot to mention i don't have a pc to go with it =[ Oh & it's analog cable. I know i'd need some kind of tuner box (how else could I change the channels ;]) but I don't have a clue as to what sort i'd need (or if they even make them in any kind of financially viable form =/)

 

[fischju2000]

A dirt cheap VHS or DVD player should be able to take that input and put it on a TV with component, if that's what you want.

You still need something like one of these http://www.amazon.com/VideoSecu-Console-Converter-monitor-1L9/dp/B000V58F9M/ref=pd_sim_MI_2 - And then get the red/white component connectors to your speakers

 

[Tom`]

Is it connected to your pc? I use one of these; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116037 works ok, 1080p can lag a bit sometimes.

Wow, that's a nice tuner! I use a Hauppauge HVR-1600 in my MythTV box - unfortunately no PCI Express, but it still handles 1080p fine (athlon 64 FX-55 CPU, 1.5gb ddr400 - I scrounged the board, CPU and memory - it had bad caps and I got it out of the trash and re-capped it - almost brand new PC for a total of around $6 or so for the caps).

 

[trooper]

I`m not sure if america has a similar service, But here in the UK we have a service called freeview, It`s basically a subscription free digital tv service that is set to replace the analogue service once it has been decommissioned. You by a small/cheap digibox about the size of a cable box for about £30, Connect it to your tv and aerial, Tune it in, And you have access to around 60 tv and radio stations, With nothing else to pay, Ever. Well, That is until the government start wanting to charge for the service, Which hopefully won`t happen.

Is there such a service in america ?, I had a quick look, But could not find anything, Well, Only free internet tv. :rolleyes:

Trooper

 

[Consequence_9]

I`m not sure if america has a similar service, But here in the UK we have a service called freeview, It`s basically a subscription free digital tv service that is set to replace the analogue service once it has been decommissioned. You by a small/cheap digibox about the size of a cable box for about £30, Connect it to your tv and aerial, Tune it in, And you have access to around 60 tv and radio stations, With nothing else to pay, Ever. Well, That is until the government start wanting to charge for the service, Which hopefully won`t happen.

Is there such a service in america ?, I had a quick look, But could not find anything, Well, Only free internet tv. :rolleyes:

Trooper

Wow, you guys are lucky! There is indeed something similar here, however it's up to the stations to broadcast the signal, so the most OTA channels I've ever seen at once was around 10 & they're usually just local stations =/

 

[Sphinxter]

Is it connected to your pc? I use one of these; http://www.newegg.co...N82E16815116037 works ok, 1080p can lag a bit sometimes.

Wow, that's a nice tuner! I use a Hauppauge HVR-1600 in my MythTV box - unfortunately no PCI Express, but it still handles 1080p fine (athlon 64 FX-55 CPU, 1.5gb ddr400 - I scrounged the board, CPU and memory - it had bad caps and I got it out of the trash and re-capped it - almost brand new PC for a total of around $6 or so for the caps).

Sweet. I don't get where the lag comes from, think it's more an mplayer issue, run it in my desktop AMD X2 5.0 GHz with 8GB ram, maybe I'm not doing it right, run the script:

   #!/bin/sh
   echo scanning...
   dvbscan  /usr/share/dvb/atsc/us-ATSC-center-frequencies-8VSB > /tmp/channels.new 2>/dev/null
   echo scan complete
   rm -f ~/.mplayer/channels.conf
   for i in This KCRA-DT KQCA-DT KVIEHD KVIE2 KTXL-FOX40 KXTV-DT KMAX-DT KOVR-DT qubo: Life: ION: LATV: KVIEVme: Telefutura: Plus: NEWS10
   do
    grep $i /tmp/channels.new >> ~/.mplayer/channels.conf
   done
   echo done

then launch from a toolbar icon with 'mplayer -fixed-vo -really-quiet dvb://'

ed; By lag I mean the sound gets out of sync and drops a few frames but usually only after a while.

 

[jmetal88]

I`m not sure if america has a similar service, But here in the UK we have a service called freeview, It`s basically a subscription free digital tv service that is set to replace the analogue service once it has been decommissioned. You by a small/cheap digibox about the size of a cable box for about £30, Connect it to your tv and aerial, Tune it in, And you have access to around 60 tv and radio stations, With nothing else to pay, Ever. Well, That is until the government start wanting to charge for the service, Which hopefully won`t happen.

Is there such a service in america ?, I had a quick look, But could not find anything, Well, Only free internet tv. :rolleyes:

Trooper

Wow, you guys are lucky! There is indeed something similar here, however it's up to the stations to broadcast the signal, so the most OTA channels I've ever seen at once was around 10 & they're usually just local stations =/

I can pick up around 23 free channels since the switch to digital. Or at least I could until a couple of weeks ago, which was when we had a storm that either knocked our antenna out of alignment or killed our signal amplifier. Just been too busy to fix it.

 

[gp32rich]

I`m not sure if america has a similar service, But here in the UK we have a service called freeview, It`s basically a subscription free digital tv service that is set to replace the analogue service once it has been decommissioned. You by a small/cheap digibox about the size of a cable box for about £30, Connect it to your tv and aerial, Tune it in, And you have access to around 60 tv and radio stations, With nothing else to pay, Ever. Well, That is until the government start wanting to charge for the service, Which hopefully won`t happen.

Is there such a service in america ?, I had a quick look, But could not find anything, Well, Only free internet tv. :rolleyes:

Trooper

What? You mean you don't pay the TV License? Tut!

 

[quote]

We got Freesat t'other day. It's better than Freeview in my opinion.

 

[sam fisher]

We got Freesat t'other day. It's better than Freeview in my opinion.

Is it still missing stuff like Virgin one?

 

[quote]

What kind of stuff?

 

[cbox]

There are boxes with cable tuners you can connect to a monitor, a coworker bought one for his monitor to watch TV without using the PC

here's an example: http://sewelldirect.com/standalone-tv-computer-monitor-tuner.asp

Found a cheaper one at DX http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28927

 

[trooper]

There are boxes with cable tuners you can connect to a monitor, a coworker bought one for his monitor to watch TV without using the PC

here's an example: http://sewelldirect.com/standalone-tv-computer-monitor-tuner.asp

Found a cheaper one at DX http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28927

I had one of those a few years ago, This is the exact one here, I paid £75 for mine, And it was the worst £75 i have ever spent. Could not get a decent/watchable picture on ANY channel, I bought and tried half a dozen booster aerials, Still no improvement in picture quality. The (main) tv downstairs at the time was tested with all those booter aerials too, Just to see if they were at fault. But no, There was a marked improvement on the main tv with all the aerials. So that pointed the fault to be toward the V-stream (tv-box), Without further ado, That sucker was drop-kicked straight out of the window. And good riddance.

Trooper

 

[Consequence_9]

There are boxes with cable tuners you can connect to a monitor, a coworker bought one for his monitor to watch TV without using the PC

here's an example: http://sewelldirect.com/standalone-tv-computer-monitor-tuner.asp

Found a cheaper one at DX http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28927

tnx for the links, that's exactly what i'm looking for =]

I had one of those a few years ago, This is the exact one here, I paid £75 for mine, And it was the worst £75 i have ever spent. Could not get a decent/watchable picture on ANY channel, I bought and tried half a dozen booster aerials, Still no improvement in picture quality. The (main) tv downstairs at the time was tested with all those booter aerials too, Just to see if they were at fault. But no, There was a marked improvement on the main tv with all the aerials. So that pointed the fault to be toward the V-stream (tv-box), Without further ado, That sucker was drop-kicked straight out of the window. And good riddance.

Trooper

=/ hmmm, well i'm not using it with the aerial signal so hopefully i'll have better luck. I'm not all that concerned with the picture quality anyway as long as it's watchable (i'm pretty much just going to be using it to watch king of the hill at 2 am). Found one on ebay for 10 bux, so even if it doesn't work all that well at least it's not much of an investment.

tnx for the input guys =]