[bigemike]

I was wondering how to use a pvr, or a tuner card to get my direct tv on the pc. I went to a computer store and a guy had an ati all in wonder hooked up to cable and it was really cool. he told me that it would work with direct tv, but I don't see how. the sat needs the direct tv card to produce signal, and if I hook my sat box upto my computer, how could it ever change channels???. I know this has to be able to be done, I just want to do it right the first time.

[Dc5e]

i don't think it'll work if you hook up the satalite directly to the computer.... and the only other way i can think is the video in on the card and changing the channels on the satalite box

[Beast Of Blight]

Take the coaxial that comes from the back of your satalites reciever box and run that to the video card.

You'll probably have to change channels with the reciever

Its just like with digital cable, You need the cable box to get the channels because they don't put descramblers on the cards because thats illegal.



EDIT

THe reason you get antenna TV and basic cable without problem is because those, unlike Sattalite and Digital cable, are not scrambled and there for viewable by anything that accepts the video in signal.

[bigemike]

ok, well the ati card I saw had a chanel guide and search features, if I couldn't use those through my pvr on the pc it makes it kinda useless.

[Deathknight]

You can buy an ir blaster which you can use to change channels on your receiver. Basically it acts as a remote control. Alot of tivo users need to change channels on their cable boxes the exact same way. The nice thing about the tivo for directv is that the tivo and the receiver are all 1 unit

[D $hady]

Originally posted by bigemike
ok, well the ati card I saw had a chanel guide and search features, if I couldn't use those through my pvr on the pc it makes it kinda useless.

You're out of luck trying to get the ATI card to tune in DirectTV channels without a DirectTV box decoding the signal (not to mention it would probably be illegal). ATI's channel guide won't work for DirectTV (or digital cable for that matter). It can only manage an analog cable signal.

One way to do it is figure out some kind of IR blaster control to change the channels on a DirectTV box from your computer, which may be more work than it's worth. Either that or change channels manually, but that's a bit of a pain.

Sorry, no good news Deathknight's suggestion may be your best bet.

-- Dave

[bigemike]

do they make an all in one unti that will do everything, I hate when I have to get two or three things to make one thing happen. I haven't had good luck with that in past projects. they end up being to time consuming and get left behind. I already have a ultimate tv reciever (another tivo like pvr) but I want to get it onto my computer. and it would be nice to have a unit that I could do that with. what is the best way to capture this stuff onto dvd, I could play it off of my ultimate tv reciever no prob, but I want clean quality reproduction onto dvd from my pc

[bigemike]

also do I want to use the combination of svideo(for video) and optical (for audio), or do i want to use single coax??? I just want some that is quick and easy and stable.

[Deathknight]

Well I know I have seen some kits that include an ir blaster and a video capture card and all that stuff. If you piece it together to choose your exact software to use which is also nice. Also if you buy an ATI AIW that comes with software as well.

Pick your software, make sure the blaster you get is compatable with the software and you should be good to go. I just read a review of Snapstream pvs3(http://www.snapstream.com) in maximum pc and that sounds real nice.

[bigemike]

that software looks cool, but I didn't see the ir interface