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How To Connect Your PC-TV

YOU CAN DO-IT-YOURSELF:
IF YOU WANT TO BUILD IT YOURSELF,
HERE ARE SEVEN GENERAL STEPS
FOR MAKING YOUR OWN PC-TV

It's easy. Open up the case of your PC, install your TV Tuner card into an unused slot on the motherboard, close up the case for your PC, hook up a TV antenna to the connections on the card on the back of your PC (or connect your cable for cable TV or connect to your satellite TV receiver box), you may have to hook up your speaker connection, turn on your PC and install the software for your TV Tuner card, you may have reboot again, and then you should have TV on your PC. Easy.

So Repeat These Seven General Steps To Yourself:

1. Open PC Case
2. Install TV Tuner card into slot on motherboard
   (be sure that you have inserted the card all the way into the slot or else the motherboard may not recognize the card -- if the card doesn't work in one slot, then try installing in another slot )
3. Close up PC Case
4. Hook up TV antenna
   (or hook up cable for cable TV or satellite TV)
5. Turn on PC and install software
   (you may have to reboot after installing the software)
6. Run your TV software to set up the channels
7. Watch TV

Keep in mind that there should be instructions included with whatever TV Tuner card you get as to how to install the card and its software. So refer to your card's instructions for any other specifics for installing your TV Tuner card.

For those confused folks who have to be explicitly told this: You will be watching regular TV (not TV via internet) because you are turning your PC into a TV. Hence, the PC-TV. The TV Tuner card receives TV signals via the TV antenna or via the cable connected to your cable TV connection or connected to your satellite TV receiver box. It's regular TV, but on your PC, just like on your regular TV set.

So, for those who are asking, it's not that complicated. So, don't get too scared or confused. For those of you who have never opened up a PC before, the toughest step for you may be opening up the case for your PC. Physically it is not that tough to do. Just take your screwdriver, unscrew the screws holding the case cover on your PC, take the case off the PC, and then take a few moments to look around inside your PC. Unfamiliarity with technical things can scare people -- I know since I remember the first time many years ago when I first opened up my first computer. But it's easy. It's like opening up the hood for your car. So go for it and don't make it seem more complicated than what it really is. And it's easy once you realize what you are doing. Refer to your TV Tuner card's instructions and you should be able to do-it-all-yourself.

USE THESE RUEL.NET PAGES AS YOUR
PC-TV RESOURCE (AND DON'T CONFUSE
PC-TV WITH SET-TOP BOXES)

Every so often I get a very, very enthusiastic email message from someone who wants to build their own PC-TV system but who seems to get their terminology mixed up:

"Hi Ruel. I have cable internet and I want to set up a set-top box that runs Windows, has a TV Tuner card, watch satellite TV or watch cable TV, and has a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) for recording TV shows and movies on the harddrive, CD, or DVD on my PC. I want to record one channel while watching another channel. And I want to preview multiple channels at the same time, have picture-in-picture, connect to a large screen TV, and have remote control. Can you help me by giving me a blueprint on how to put something like this together? Any links or tips would be greatly appreciated. And I would like to do this without spending a lot of money!"

Boy, this person is really asking for the moon! And you should too if you want the best PC-TV system for your home! Okay, first, let's clear up the terminology confusion between "set-top boxes" and "PC-TV." You have to keep in mind that set-top boxes are separate products different from the PC -- although the set-top box may have the technical power of a PC.

(Okay, you could say that PC-TV could be considered a sub-set of set-top boxes or vice versa that set-top boxes are a sub-set of PCs depending on your point of view. Or you could say PC-TV is the PC cousin of set-top boxes. And you could also say "entertainment gateway" boxes are the set-top cousin of PC-TV. But you have to keep in mind that set-top boxes with set-top cable converter boxes were around first before the PC made it big with the internet and before people starting putting TV Tuners into their desktop PCs. Nonetheless, they are all related via their grandfather known as the TV set.)

You have to keep in mind that set-top boxes (and entertainment gateway boxes) are off-the-shelf products for the consumer that the consumer does not have to "build." Consumers could get set-top boxes for easy hook-up to their TV sets from their cable TV provider, from their satellite TV provider, or buy off-the-shelf from a store. If you look at the overall Ruel.Net website, you will see the website is divided up into sections where one section is for PC-TV (which is what you are really interested in if you are looking at this side of the webiste) and the other section is for set-top boxes. If you can see the division between the two, then you should understand that the two are different where (1) the PC-TV is for the build-it-yourself do-it-yourself folks and (2) the set-top boxes are for the non-PC folks, who wouldn't know how to install software on a PC, and who simply need something easy to connect to their TV sets.

Forget about getting an exact blueprint for making a PC-TV-- any such blueprint will not fit the multitude of diverse installations of hardware and software that people will have when making their own individualized PC-TV systems. But if you are good with installing cards in a PC and experimenting with software installations, then you should be able to do it yourself in an ad hoc personalized manner. What you see here in the PC-TV section at Ruel.Net is a set of pages with comments and information to give people a starting point as to how to put together a PC-TV system. That's why I go into my comments about running two (or more) TV tuner cards at the same time on one PC. That's why there's a PC-to-TV page for those folks who want to hook up their PC-TV systems to TV sets whether to regular-size TV sets or to larger-screen TV sets (just get the right hardware and hook it all up). That's also why there is a page for wireless remote control devices including remote control keyboards with built-in mouse. Etc. So, take your time.

As previously stated, please note that there should be instructions included with whatever TV Tuner card you get as to how to install the card and its software. So, if you have any smarts at all (and most people are smart enough to figure out what they are doing), and if you are not scared about opening up your PC, then you should read and digest the comments and information on these PC-TV webpages here at Ruel.Net, get one or two TV Tuner cards, open up your PC, install the the cards, and experiment with setting them up and hooking them up. On the other hand, if you don't want to open up your PC or if you have no idea as to how to install software on a PC, then you are better off getting a set-top box from your satellite TV provider or from your cable TV provider. So, weigh the costs in terms of both money spent and in terms of your own technical skills for doing-it-yourself -- and decide for yourself whether you really want to go the PC-TV build-it-yourself route OR if you want to get a ready-built, ready-to-plug-in, no-software-installation-needed, off-the-shelf, easy-to-use set-top box.

If you still want to make your own PC-TV system but you are still concerned about costs, please note throughout my comments that I do mention the ATI TV Wonder card, the WinTV-GO card, and the the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card because those are the cards that I use and they do NOT cost an awful lot of money. Each of those three particular cards are under $100 and are packed with various capabilities. (Also see footnote for some comments about the capabilites for these cards¹.)

Please keep in mind that this section of PC-TV pages here at Ruel.Net is provided as a comprehensive starting point for you to build whatever PC-TV system you want to have. But don't get too scared about "building" your own PC-TV because at the very minimum, at the very least, you are merely installing a TV Tuner card into your PC. By installing a TV Tuner card into your PC, you will be doing the very simple act of transforming your PC into a PC-TV. (Also see another footnote if you are thinking about building a completely new PC that you would use as a PC-TV².)

So, if you have the enthusiasm for PC-TV, as well as for interactive television, and if you have your screwdriver in your hand ready to open up your PC, then I would say that you should get at least one TV Tuner card to begin with so you can see how it works in your PC. Then build up your PC-TV from that point. (Also see yet another footnote for some comments about my own suggested optimal memory requirements above any manufacturer's suggested "minimum" requirements³.) And for those of you asking for "special" links, hey, go explore these pages and click the links that are here on these webpages. Good luck to you.

Happy PC-TV Watching!
Ruel

P.S. You can click here if you need a general reference book on upgrading and building personal computers (the link goes to books covering PCs in general.)

¹   The ATI TV Wonder and the WinTV-GO cards have multi-channel scanning preview if you would like to quickly see what is on other channels. (Again, if you have two or more TV Tuner cards on the PC-TV at the same time, then you can simultaneously monitor two or more channels at the same time using side-by-side TV windows or picture-in-picture.) The ATI TV Wonder has a basic recorder function -- the new version 7.1 software, which uses a WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver, of the ATI software has an instant replay capability but I personally prefer the older 6.3 version of the software which uses the VfW (Video for Windows) driver particularly since I've read several bad user comments about the version 7.1 software (you can download version 7.1 at the ATI website). The WinTV-GO does not come with a recorder but you can download recorder software from the Hauppauge website although you may want to look elsewhere at other software such as the Honestech TVR software which was designed to work with the WinTV-GO card. The Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card has a recorder function providing PVR record-and-playback, pause-and-instant-replay capabilities plus it has a very handy handheld remote control -- the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card has become a popular TV Tuner card. I really like the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card with its addicting PVR capabilities. (I also have a VCR connected to my PC-TV and I still use the VCR because the VCR technology is STILL good, is easy to use, is PORTABLE with the easily transportable videotape cassettes, has cheaper-to-rent and cheaper-to-buy movies, and doesn't require that the PC-TV be on all the time if you are recording while you are out -- anyways, if you listen to any of the folks at TiVo or ReplayTV, they will tell you that the PVR is NOT necessarily meant to totally replace the VCR when it comes to archiving purposes.) Note, that you need two TV Tuners to either have dual TV pictures or to record one channel while watching another channel at the same time -- although the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card comes close to doing something like that by itself by being able to let you watch a recorded show while recording another show at the same time. Of course, you can choose to get only one card if all you want is a single good TV on your PC. You can click here to check out these and other TV Tuner cards.

²   If you wanted to, instead of merely installing a TV Tuner card into your existing current PC, you could buy a whole new PC to put your TV Tuner card into. I mention this because the cost of PCs have dropped dramatically over the years. If you do your homework, you could even build up a whole new custom PC (without the monitor) with a new motherboard and new parts (and even using parts and software from your old PC to cut down on overall costs) for $300 minimum (but expect to spend more if you want to have more). OR if you looked around, you could find a good new ready-to-go PC (without the monitor) with Windows XP for the price of around $250-to-$300 or so (and you can also take parts from your old PC to put into the new PC). Those type of cheap prices for PCs really help to eliminate the so-called "digital divide." FYI, if you haven't guessed already, I've went through all those routes: putting a TV Tuner card into an existing PC; getting a new PC and putting the TV Tuner card and other existing parts into the new PC; and building a whole new custom PC and again taking existing parts from the previous PCs to build up a new PC-TV. Whichever way you go, it can all be relatively cheap. So at bare minimum, just open up your existing PC and install a TV Tuner card to turn your PC into a PC-TV.

³   Since memory chips and large harddrives are becoming more affordable, I would suggest that you have a lot of RAM memory and very large harddrive in your system. I would suggest 256 megabytes RAM for your PC-TV. I would also suggest that you get the largest harddrive that you can afford for your PC-TV (also click here for a related comment about using a secondary harddrive with a removable drive drawer for storing exported archive video files on your PC-TV PVR system). Even if you still use Windows 98 (and there is nothing wrong with using Win98), your system will be much more stable and less susceptible to crashes if you have that much memory and storage. If you want to watch TV with your PC, and particularly if you want to have PVR functions, you don't want your PC to freeze and crash by having less memory. You can get by with less memory -- hey, I've had only 32 meg RAM or less memory and much smaller 1-to-4 gigabyte harddrives when I was previously using a Celeron system, an older Pentium system and an old 486 system -- but in terms of memory I am suggesting optimal or better requirements and not the manufacturer's minimum requirements. Anyways, in general, the more memory you have then the better off you will be. So, the more RAM you have, then the more stable your system should be. And the larger the harddrive you have, then the more TV shows at the best quality you can record -- and that you do not have to delete.