Sometime back (last May) I picked up a TV/FM tuner card for the PC.
It records shows, and does a lot more.

A month back my VCR crapped out on me, and I had posted about it.

Now that I have the tuner card all setup and it is working great, I decided to document how I did this, and how you can have TIVO like capabilities for zero $$$ each month.

TIVO charges you money for their subscription service and TV guide, my method is free.

All you need is the card, a site that supports online scheduling, and the correct cables to run to your TV set.

Good bye VCR, I will not be missing you at all anymore
Here is the page I worked on today.

 

Corey,

Have you used your TV card to record any FM radio? I was thinking about using mine to record Cubs baseball (night games on the west coast) that arent televised. How does it record FM?

Jonathan

 

It records FM great.
And you can save it in many different formats such as WAV, MP3, and a few others.

I tried it out when I first got it, and it is real easy.
You have the same card right?

 

sure do

 

Cool...
What I also like about the output now going to the TV is I can listen to FM on the TV.
Though it does not sound as good as the sound coming from my PC hooked up to my Z680 speakers.

 

Isn't it great Corey!! Before Christmas I bought a new Gateway with MS XP Media Center 2005. My wife has me record all of the shows that she misses (works nights). Also the best thing is recording the entire series of something and burning it to a DVD to watch anywhere. I also record movies from premium channels and record them to DVD. That way I don't have to buy them.

 

Brad, that is a cool idea of burning them.
In my ops I record all of my shows as MPEG 2 Optimal Quality.
As you can see here by the pic, I have a ton of options including direct burn to a DVD.
Have not tried that yet.

I did record the Farscape Peacekeeper Wars 4 hour mini series when it was out last fall, then afterwards I burned each one hour show to a DVD.

 

C/Net has some info on recording too, and turning your PC into a Microsoft Media Center with 3rd party software.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3000_7-...ml?tag=nl.e404

The best one looks like the Sage setup.
If you have a tuner card already, you can get the Sage software and remote which works with several cards.
http://reviews.cnet.com/SageTV_2_2/4...4.html?tag=lst

This would be your desktop with the app running.

 

i have a couple simple questions....with the tv tuner card can I just hook to my wall and record to the computer? Then I could use a cd-r to make VCD's to watch on stand alone dvd players. Also if thats possible would I guess I wouldnt be able to watch some of the cable channels without another cable box receiver....but I would be able to get like 2-40 or how high the basic cable goes right? Thanks

 

With regards to "Windows Media" can you buy it and install it? That setup looks awesome.

 

The short answer to all of your questions is yes.

Hook up TV tuner card to standard cable. Download the programs Corey outlined, so you can get the TV guides and such. Record away copy to Disc.

My set up on my Xp Media Center is standard cable line going into PC and a S-video line comming off of my Digital Box. I use the standard line for normal basic cable viewing, and the S-video for recording movies on the pay channels.

 

I don't think they sell it as a stand alone. But you can do it on your own just like Media Center. Read the article Corey pointed to. Get a TV card and download the software.

 

Now that is nice? I could record some ncaa football games with that

 

With my setup I can set it to record 14 days in advanced. I can also set it to record just once, record the entire series, or record everytime the show comes on (no matter what channel it is showing on and if it is a repeat, would work great for things like Friends or Sienfeld, etc..).

 

My ISP is Comcast with cable, and you can see here the splitter on my wall.
http://pnw4runners.com/tando/pc25.jpg

Top line is the line from the wall, and the two on the bottom one goes to my cable modem, the other one to the TV tuner card.

My card works with this site.
http://www.titantv.com/TTV/Grid/Grid.aspx
Here is what it looks like when you are logged in.
http://www.pnw4runners.com/tando/pc31.jpg
That is my TV guide, and I can click a button on the interface and it brings up that guide which runs on JAVA.
Mouse over a show to watch it live, or record.
I set up two weeks in advance this way for shows to record.

There is a trick to getting the MS XP Media Center, and you can do it from certain vendors such as www.newegg.com
You have to order something multimedia, but I am not sure, and you can buy the software, no need to buy a new PC to get it.

I love this setup so much, and as stated earlier many times, VCRs are old news, this is the way to go.

I can even watch stuff my son downloaded on the PC in the other room such as old cartoons or shows, network to my PC and open up the file with my PVR software, and sit in the living room and use the remote to watch, pause, ect on my TV.

The card I have can not be beat for $50 or so.
Plus it does video capture.
Last Sunday I hooked up my old Sony camcorder from 1991 to my TV tuner card, and used NERO to capture the whole one hour 8mm tape to my PC.

Now I just have to edit it, as the tape that I transferred has many errors in it.
The tape is 14 years old after all, and there are some glitches in it from being so old.
It was cool watching old vids of my kids when they were young.
When I get more time I will do all of my old tapes and transfer to DVD with NERO.