Btv4 Hdr Questions

[nba1341]

ok so lets say i ordered adelphia hdtv
http://adelphia.com/cable_entertainm...tv_details.cfm
since that is my cable provider then what would i do in order to get it to my computer also

Could i just buy one of those hdtv tuner cards and hook up my tv cable to the back of the card and i have it like?

or what would i do because im thinking about doing this.

- help will be very much appreciated thx

i understand it cant record hdtv from a box or whatever but does that mean you cant whatch it from a box?

[me2]

HDTV tuner cards use free over-the-air HD broadcasts from your local tv stations, and are the easiest way to capture HDTV streams. I don't know of a way myself to transfer an HDTV stream from a cable box to the computer. Likewise, you can't use your cable box to watch streams recorded on your computer.

[nba1341]

ok and have they talked about supporting hooking up hdtv cable boxes to your tv tuner

or would a tv tuner have to come out supporting this then BT4 come out with an upgrade supporting this?

[HomeyFour]

The tricky part is getting the video into the computer. HDTV is broadcast as data, not as a typical "tv signal" in the classical sense. Once your HDTV cable box decodes the data, it puts it out as a video signal. Then you plug the video signal (via an svideo cable or whatever) into a TV tuner/capture card. It's going to get smashed down into an MPEG file just like SDTV, and will be captured at the resolution supported by that capture card., like 720x480. So, you end up watching an SD image anyways. Granted, the image will probably be very good and clean, but still limited to the resolution supported by the capture card.

There might be cards out there that can capture a video stream and encode it into a mpeg transport stream, but you're still defeating the may beauty of HD in that it is already sent as data. What you want to do is get that HD data stream (think like a modem) into your computer and not encode it or mess with it whatsoever. You want like a firewire or USB connection from your cable box to your computer directly, essentially like copying a file from one place to another, or hooking the cable TV directly into a HD tuner which will dump the raw data stream into the PC.

Sorry if this is getting long-winded. Think of it as taking a nice digital recording like a CD, then copying it to another CD but through analog RCA cables instead of optical or digital coax. You're losing the fidelity and the "point" of the digital medium by converting to analog and then back to digital, etc.

At the moment, there is no support for this in BTV. There are HDTV tuners that are capable of being hooked up directly to cable TV to get the HD stream, but this is not supported by BTV... yet.

[nba1341]

ah ok thx for info

[debennett2]

There are HDTV tuners that are capable of being hooked up directly to cable TV to get the HD stream, but this is not supported by BTV... yet.

Do you know which ones? Thanks.

[HomeyFour]

Well I can tell you that mine (Fusion5 HDTV) does, it is capable of recording QAM HDTV. But again, BTV cannot yet use this, but the software that this tuner comes with can.

[Harold]

Even for those cards that do support QAM, many cable systems elect to scramble all of the digital channels except for the local broadcast stations. At least TW does in Houston. So there's no real improvement in content.

This is where the Cable Card comes in. Right now, no one has it for a PC due to DRM concerns. See other threads on Cable Card.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by HomeyFour

Well I can tell you that mine (Fusion5 HDTV) does, it is capable of recording QAM HDTV. But again, BTV cannot yet use this, but the software that this tuner comes with can.

Are you connecting the fusion5 directly to the cable coming in or to a cable box ? Most of my digital channels are over 200 - can the fusion5 tune that high ?

[HomeyFour]

To be honest Nanook, I haven't tried it yet... but its plastered all over the documentation and the ads on their website that it is capable of recording QAM. Don't know about the tuning..

[nanook105]

Well, I just got mine , so I'll be giving it a try

[debennett2]

Let us know how it goes fellas! Thanks!

[Binbear]

Usingthe digital/analog autoscan My Fusion HDTV USB picked up all the digital channels from the TW cable during auto scan. The Fusion TV software only allowed me to view the broadcast HD channels. The others showed but tagged as encrypted.

when I setup BTV 4.0 source using setup wizard. BTV4 it only picked up the analog cable channels and not the digital channels from cable Fusion had scanned.

[HomeyFour]

BTV will not let you use QAM (cable) HDTV yet, only over the air ATSC HD.

[nba1341]

Originally Posted by Binbear

Usingthe digital/analog autoscan My Fusion HDTV USB picked up all the digital channels from the TW cable during auto scan. The Fusion TV software only allowed me to view the broadcast HD channels. The others showed but tagged as encrypted.

when I setup BTV 4.0 source using setup wizard. BTV4 it only picked up the analog cable channels and not the digital channels from cable Fusion had scanned.

by digital do you mean hd or like basic cable from digital cable because i see know difference from the 2 although i have never tried it on a computer monitor.