TV Tuners (GT Air, Wintv 1950) and Encrypted Channels

I am trying to figure out which TV tuner is better between the OnAir GT and the new Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950..I have not seen any reviews about the new 1950 so any help would be appreciated.

Also, I am trying to figure out a way to receive the encrypted digital channels. Would it work if I hooked the tuner up to the actual digital box? Wouldn't that mean the box decrypts the channels and I could view them on my laptop? I am a newb on here so spare me but help would be great!

 

There are two ways to view cable encrypted content.

Buy a box and hook it up to a TV tuner, which is a pain for changing channels.

Buy a Vista OEM PC with a cable card TV tuner, which is a pain because it is a DRM ridden installation that will break as soon as you reformat or upgrade so much as your hard drive.

 

Broadcast channels (NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/etc) tend to be unencrypted so you should be able to watch at least some channels. Otherwise, if your cable settop box has a FireWire port you might be able to use that... but that's probably beyond the scope of this site. I'm too cheap to pay Comcast even more money for digital cable so I watch the unencrypted channels with my OnAir GT and suffer with analog (which the GT also does) for everything else.

 

I am unsure about the firewall port.

Also, Greg... if the cable box is dedicated to the TV tuner on the laptop, that should allow the encrypted channels to work? That means instead of having the output from the cable box go to the TV, it should go to the OnAir GT for instance and the problem is solved?

Thanks for the help guys, bit by bit aids the situation.

 

FW is kind of a hack-it-up solution...not worth the trouble.

Yes, if you use the cable box then you treat the TV tuner as the "TV". Some DRM (copy-once, copy-none stuff) might still apply...but no method I know of gets around that.

So in a nutshell, using another STB might be the way to go.

 

Another newbie comment but what did you mean when you said using another STB might be the way to go?

 

i need some similar help as well guys,

where i live i have a big aerial/dish/satellite (whatever its called) on the roof of my house. it has a wire coming out of it that goes into a receiver/st top box connected to my TV through the RED/YELLOW/WHITE cables. i dont have to pay anything and i get channels (some are blocked and u have to pay for them)
Now how can i connect this to my HDX? when i connect the wire from the satellite to the HDX and scan for channels, none are detected. and i can connect the 3 red/yellow/white cables cuz the HDX tuner has only 1 RF coxial cable input.

any help guys please i have been trying to connect for 3 months now but no success

 

Any luck Umar? I have been having trouble scanning and finding channels myself. (Even when they are not digitally encrypted) With the OnAir GT...Hmmm