Anyone ever try TV on your PC software?

[srussell]

I keep getting emails for software that supposedly shows thousands of channels on your PC. The software usually ranges in price from $30 to $70.

Has anyone tried it anything like that? Is it legitimate? Or does it just point to Websites that you could find anyway with just a little bit of searching?

Sam

[kshsj777]

I don't know anything about just software. As far as I know, you have 2 options:

1) Watch TV via the internet (No closed caption, so not interested in this one for me.) But you can do it for free; no need to pay money.

2) Buy a tv tuner. You can get USB which uses an usb port, PCI or PCIe which uses those kind of ports, expresscards for expresscard and I think those are the main ones. If you buy a tv tuner, make sure it is digital or hybrid, or else it won't in Feb for the digital transition. Also, the U.S. uses the ATSC format for digital signals, I don't know if DVT would work.

If you have windows, you should be able to use Windows Media Center (not 100% sure on that) but some tv tuners like hauppauge brand come with a bundled software for tv.

For linux, go here to find compatible tuners. http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page I'm having trouble finding compatible tuners that I KNOW support closed captioning so that's my hangup. I've heard MythTV is a good software to use for watching TV but there are other ones for linux.

For Macs, sorry. I'm sure there's something for you. Some companies have them, you just have to find them.

[Xenia]

We can watch TV on one of our computers. We have it hooked up to our Direct TV and we had to get a TV tuner card for the PC.

[Phy]

Here's another cool thing: http://www.9thtee.com/hdhomerun.htm

It looks like it adds the ability to watch HD television on your computer. I'm already enjoying Windows Media Center on my PC (for my money, one of the most underrated Microsoft applications ever). The ability to watch some of my shows in HD on my computer sounds just dreamy!

[kshsj777]

Hey it's compatible with linux and myth tv, cool. Problem: It's $170 and I can't figure out if it supports CC.

Oh well I'm looking for something that's a lot smaller and plugs right into my laptop.

[wgjones3]

I keep getting emails for software that supposedly shows thousands of channels on your PC. The software usually ranges in price from $30 to $70.

Has anyone tried it anything like that? Is it legitimate? Or does it just point to Websites that you could find anyway with just a little bit of searching?

Sam

Basically, this will do the same thing for free: http://www.tvunetworks.com/

Interesting side note, you can watch SPEED Channel on there under the network they call "Wheels". :D

[wgjones3]

Oh yeah, when I was on university broadband (5 mb/s), I watched a lot of cool stuff on Joost. It doesn't work on my current 768 kb/s connection though.