What type of tuner to make my laptop a DVR?

I'd like something I can hook my cable into from a splitter and then record TV shows. I think some even have programs like comcast's tv guide thing right?

 

i have comcast at home (basic cable), so here's my advice

comcast(at least on my end) is still sending analog channels and a few unencrypted digital channels (QAM) through the coax cable... this means that a TV Tuner(With QAM and NTSC capabilities) can view those channels... this might chance in the future when cable companies go towards digital channels and you are forced to get a cable box for every tv in your home (digital channels give cable companies more compression per channel and encryption, so they save money and get rid of hackers who hack to get free cable)

if you have HD content on your TV, it means you are using a cable box... comcast encrypts most of it's HD channels (besides NBC/CBS/FOX/ABC/a few other local channels that they put on QAM), so if you want HD, you need to get another cable box...

if you get a TV Tuner with ATSC capabilities, you can just hook up an external antenna and try to get over-the-air (OTA) channels .... look at www.antennaweb.org to see what channels/antenna you need to get

i currently have This AverMedia Volar Max TV Tuner [click on it to see my review and find out which is the best TV DVR Program IMO]... works perfectly and costs decent for something with QAM

for recording, you most likely will be recording Analog/QAM channels.. for Analog, you need a half decent processor because the processor needs to decode the information and save it. the TV Tuner will also get hot... for QAM, you can probably use anything you want because all the processor has to do is to read the MPEG2 input stream(from QAM) and save it. the tv tuner should not get hot...

^this is what i hate about Cable companies... the only decent ways to record HD content is
a) get a QAM Tuner and pray that the Cable companies put the channels you want on QAM[impossible, since they encrypt almost everything]
b) get a CableCard computer [cablecards can decrypt digital content, but you need to buy a computer prebuilt with a cablecard slot since companies don't just sell you a cablecard device.. so this sucks]
c) get the cable company's DVR [which costs an extra $6/month]
d) get an extra cable box and input into your TV Tuner [which means you are feeding two boxes with electricity and paying an extra $4/month for the cable box?... waste of money ]
e) get an extra cable box that has firewire out and input to your computer with firewire in [same thing with (d)]


after you understand the above information and (hopefully still want to) get a TV Tuner, you just get a splitter and cables(i got them from monoprice.com, cost me around $9 total for a 4-way splitter and 2 cables), connect the cables to the TV Tuner/(other stuff)

best program: load up Windows Media Center and set it up.... WMC gives you a free TV Guide, so that rocks)... Windows 7's WMC is really good, so if you are going to partition your hard drive anytime soon, look at windows 7

 

I bought this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00138H420/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

You hook your cable into it then hook the usb to your computer and boom done. It comes with software, but its buggy, it is better to use media center instead. All you need to do is connect it to your computer, and vista will download the drivers. Then open media center and tell it to setup tv signal. It will ask for your address then download your tv guide. So you get a tv guide of all the channels you have on your stream AND media center lets you select shows to record so it is a DVR.

The Digital quality it produces is superb the standard is also really good, but again it isn't as good as digital, but pretty close. Anyway, with media center you can schedule recordings and everything, then even burn them to dvd right from the center so its really cool. Anyway hope that helps!

 

So if my digital channels through comcast are encrypted, can I use my cable box as a passthrough to my laptop's tuner?

 

you should be able to...

i haven't played a lot around with comcast boxes, but i think most boxes should still have Coax Out (i have basic cable, the box i have is only coax out... higher-end models for HD cable have HDMI out, but should also have Coax out)

 

I'm pretty sure that it is a requirement (US Federal Law) that all cable providers broadcast the OTA channels (basically, the major networks) over ClearQAM no matter what, so you should have access to those in perpetuity. For other channels though, you will need a cable card, which you can get from your cable company. They have both external and internal cards, but for a lappy, you are probably looking at external. They connect via USB most of the time.