Planning Your Media Center PC: Choosing Your TV Source
The first step in planning your build should be figuring out what source you want to work with. Their are advantages and disadvantages to each and after reading this article you may decide it easier to switch providers. In this guide, we will review the different TV providers and how best to integrate each into your Media Center PC. This guide is geared mainly towards US sources. If we have any volunteers, I would love to add country specific details to this guide.
Over The Air (OTA) HDTV and Analog TV
If your goal in life is to tune broadcast analog TV, you should be aware that providers will cease to broadcast analog TV in 2009. With that said, I don’t think it is worthwhile to go down this route.
Because analog TV is about to meet its demise you can be sure that broadcast digital TV (this includes HDTV) is a great alternative. All current generation tuners such as the AVerMedia M780, SiliconDust HDHomeRun, VistaView Saber DA1N1 and Hauppauge HVR-1600/1800 support the ATSC standard and is a great way to get local HD channels without paying a dime. Local affiliates in most major cities have converted all locals to DTV, and even those last few small time stations will be digital by 2009.
All major software packages such as Sage/BeyondTV and MCE support these tuners.
Since it is free, it probably isn’t going to be to easy. Tuning broadcast HDTV can be a pain in the butt because of distance issues and signal interference. If going this route, a roof top mounted antenna is the best way to go. I have had some luck with a directional indoor antenna.
Software support – 10/10 – All major software packages are supported
Ease of tuning – 5/10 – Having to mount a rooftop antenna is never fun. If you are lucky, a quality indoor antenna will get you what you need.
Tuner Card availability – 10/10
Price of Tuner Card – 10/10
Number of channels – Local network stations only – 2/10
Analog Cable – Standard Definition Channels Only
Analog TV tuners have been around for quite sometime and are what sparked the PC-PVR revolution. The benefit here is that just about any PVR card will work with all the major PVR packages. We do recommend the latest generation stated above as they have the best analog quality.
All major software packages support analog cable tuner cards.
There is only one method to tune analog cable
- This very easy method is to simply plug the COAX cable into the tuner card and let the software find the channels. This will allow to tune the first 125 channels. This excludes all HD channels, and the majority of premium cable channels.
Software support – 10/10
Ease of tuning – 10/10
Tuner Card availability – 10/10
Price of Tuner Card – 10/10
Number of channels – Local network stations only – 6/10
Digital Cable
Lets start off with an explanation of digital cable first. The term digital cable means many things to many people, so clarifying this definition should help clear any confusion up. Digital cable is a distribution method that allows for more channels for a given bandwidth. As well, it allows for premium content such as movie rentals and video on demand. Standard definition and high definition channels are on digital cable.
There are three different methods to tune digital cable.
- The first method is to use a cable set top box. To do this, you plug the s-video out of your cable box into your s-video in on your analog, hybrid or combo tuner card. The software package then uses an IR blaster to change channels on the cable set-top box. This will allow you to tune all channels in standard definition only. HDTV channels are down-converted to 480i using this method. This method will only tune standard definition channels!!
Notes: Vista MCE and XP MCE use the standard MCE IR Receiver/Blaster to control set top boxes. Programs such as SageTV and BeyondTV can use a serial cable (if supported by your set-top box), the USB-UIRT blaster, or the blaster that comes integrated into select Hauppauge tuner cards.
Software support – 10/10
Ease of tuning – 7/10 – It is easy but not as easy as plugging one cable in.
Tuner Card availability – 10/10 – Most cards have a s-video in port.
Price of Tuner Card – 10/10 –
Number of channels – 8/10 (no HD channels or premium content)
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The second method is to use Firewire out of the cable box. Firewire (IEEE 1394) – The FCC mandated that set top boxes should have
active firewire ports. It can be a pain to get them but if you do, you
can record the Firewire dump. Some premium channels are encrypted. The
number of channels is similar to clear QAM tuning, only the most
basic/mandated channels will be available in the clear over Firewire.
Firewire also requires tuning hacks which require from moderate to very
advanced knowledge to configure depending on the PVR software.
The nice thing about this method is that you do NOT have to use IR blasters. Channel changing is handled via firewire.
Software support – 5/10 – Not all packages support this and it is a third party plugin that makes it work.
Ease of tuning – 5/10 – The method can be a lot more fiddly and more technical to get working.
Tuner Card availability – 10/10 – Most cards have a s-video in port.
Price of Tuner Card – No tuner card required. It is free if you have a Firewire port available.
Number of channels – 8.5/10 (depends on how lucky you are with encryption)
- The third method is to use a cable card tuner. ATI recently released digital cable tuners that will allow full tuning of all premium HD and SD cable content minus the two way communication for PPV. This is the holy grail right?? Well close, but you have to buy an OEM CableCard PC to get CableCard tuners. At the time of publishing CableCard ready PCs will run you at least $1000.
Software support – 2/10 – Only works with prebuilt VMC systems
Ease of tuning – 8/10 – It should be very similar to a cable company set top box experience. -2
because you have to call out a cable tech to install the cards.
Tuner Card availability – 2/10 – A lot of OEMs are now on board, but this number will stay low until
CableCard ready PCs are a part of the budget lineup or it becomes
available for the DIY.
Price of Tuner Card – 3/10 – By far the most expensive on the market. Add-ons typically range from $150 to $300 depending on the OEM.
Number of channels – 9.5/10 – No PPV
QAM Cable
A QAM, or quadrature amplitude modulation, is a method in which digital cable channels are encoded and transmitted. Most of the new generation of tuner cards support this with the exception of the newest VistaView Sabre. Most providers scramble the premium content and leave most of the basic SD channels, local HD channels and a few basic HD channels unscrambled. This allows for relatively easy tuning of HD content.
The big "but" here is that QAM tuning is relatively new and not fully supported by all software packages. Here are a few points to consider about various hardware and software configurations.
- The Silicon Dust HDHomeRun is a dual QAM/OTA network tuner that provides support for all major software packages.
- SageTV is the only software that currently supplies native QAM tuning for the newest generation cards.
- ATI’s digital cable tuner allows for QAM tuning but must be bought with a pre-built HTPC.
- AVerMedia has released a beta driver/plugin that allows for QAM tuning in Vista Media Center. It is somewhat buggy at the time of this article.
- FIOS works very similar to cable in this respect.
Software support – 7/10
Ease of tuning – 6/10 – EPG channel remapping and the tech level keeps this score lower. Installation is a snap, all you have to do is plug in the coax cable directly to your tuner card. No cable box or IR blasters involved.
Tuner Card availability – 9/10
Price of Tuner Card – 8/10 – HDHomeRun (which is the best supported TV tuner) is rather pricey.
Number of channels – 7.5/10 (Some HD channels, most SD channels)
R5000 Mod – Dish & Cable
The R5000 mod is a modified cable box that allows for mpeg-2 captures. Nextcom does this by adding a USB controller to the box. I recommend heading over to Nextcom Wireless to check out details and compatibility with your provider. At this time, they offer support for Dish and Cable providers depending on the box used. It is a rather pricey option so be sure to contact their support prior to purchasing.
Software support – 2/10 – SageTV is the only software package to support this mod. MCE has a workaround.
Ease of tuning – 6/10 I have no personal experience with it but based on what I have read it looks technical and there can be problems encountered
Tuner Card availability – 1/10 – Nextcom has the monopoly on cable box mods. You can expect to pay 450 to 550 dollars depending on the mod performed.
Price of Tuner Card – 1/10 – See above
Number of channels – 10/10 You get every last channel.
As I mentioned above, contact Nextcom’s support and find out more information. Or head on over to SageTV or the AVSForum for more information. If you have experience with the R5000 mod, please post comments.
Satellite (i.e DirectTV & Dish)
Besides the R5000 mod mentioned above, there is only one method to use Satellite with your Media Center PC. This method is exactly the same as a cable set top box.
Plug the s-video out of your satellite box into your s-video in on your
analog, hybrid or combo tuner card. The software package then uses an
IR blaster to change channels on the cable set-top box. This will allow
you to tune all channels in standard definition only. HDTV channels are
down-converted to 480i using this method. This method will only tune
standard definition channels!!
Notes: Vista MCE and XP MCE use the standard MCE IR Receiver/Blaster
to control set top boxes. Programs such as SageTV and BeyondTV can use a
serial cable (if supported by your set-top box), the USB-UIRT blaster,
or the blaster that comes integrated into select Hauppauge tuner cards.
Software support – 10/10
Ease of tuning – 7/10 – It is easy but not as easy as plugging one cable in.
Tuner Card availability – 10/10 – Most cards have a s-video in port.
Price of Tuner Card – 10/10 – Combo cards are the cheapest on the market.
Number of channels – 8/10 (no HD channels or premium content)
Satellite 169time mod
16:9 Time is
another option for modding your satellite receiver with a firewire
port. Support is the same as any firewire option – SageTV with the Anders Nolberger sgraphrecorder plugin and MCE with the timmmoore plugin.
One of the downsides of firewire capture with MCE is you still can’t
watch live TV in HD and it requires you to have a regular TV Tuner.
Those issues do not exist when using firewire cap with SageTV.
Credit goes to user nvmarino for the 169time mod.
Version History
01/01/2008 Initial release
01/02/2008 Added Satellite 169time mod, made a correction to the price of Firewire tuner card.