suggestions for watching TV on my laptop?

Hi all -

I have a PC and also a Macintosh titanium laptop, both on a wireless
network (802.11b). Is there any way to do either of these things:

1) be able to watch TV on the laptop in real-time; presumably there's some
sort of analog-digital converter one can get for the cable TV output, but is
there any way to have it compressed on the fly and sent wirelessly to the
laptop via the wifi network?

and,

2) how hard is it to recapitulate a TiVo-like system on a laptop (Mac or
PC), so that it records programs to a hard-drive? And, can such a thing be
accessed remotely (via wifi)?

If anyone has any suggestions re. hardware and software for any of this,
please cc: replies to (E-Mail Removed). Thanks!

Mike Levin <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<BB6CC5FE.14433%(E-Mail Removed)>...
> Hi all -
>
> I have a PC and also a Macintosh titanium laptop, both on a wireless
> network (802.11b). Is there any way to do either of these things:
>
> 1) be able to watch TV on the laptop in real-time; presumably there's some
> sort of analog-digital converter one can get for the cable TV output, but is
> there any way to have it compressed on the fly and sent wirelessly to the
> laptop via the wifi network?
>
> and,
>
> 2) how hard is it to recapitulate a TiVo-like system on a laptop (Mac or
> PC), so that it records programs to a hard-drive? And, can such a thing be
> accessed remotely (via wifi)?
>
> If anyone has any suggestions re. hardware and software for any of this,
> please cc: replies to (E-Mail Removed). Thanks!

The easiest way is to use a PC TV tuner card MSI's TV@nywhere probably
does everything you want.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 11:19:27 GMT, Mike Levin <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi all -
>
> I have a PC and also a Macintosh titanium laptop, both on a wireless
>network (802.11b). Is there any way to do either of these things:
>
>1) be able to watch TV on the laptop in real-time; presumably there's some
>sort of analog-digital converter one can get for the cable TV output, but is
>there any way to have it compressed on the fly and sent wirelessly to the
>laptop via the wifi network?

USB tuners are available for the Mac. Otherwise, you can stick a PCI
tuner in the PC, encode and compress the movie into DiVX (or similar)
format on the PC, and then watch it on the Mac via 802.11b.

>and,
>
>2) how hard is it to recapitulate a TiVo-like system on a laptop (Mac or
>PC), so that it records programs to a hard-drive? And, can such a thing be
>accessed remotely (via wifi)?

Yep - easily. Showshifter is what I use.

>If anyone has any suggestions re. hardware and software for any of this,
>please cc: replies to (E-Mail Removed). Thanks!

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 17:03:39 -0700, itsrainin wrote
(in message <sdT1b.10114$Go4.8863@lakeread01>):

> i run my tv to a server that streams the image so when im at work i can
> watch the news on the net works pretty good, when im on the home network
> picture quality vastly increases.

Can you describe in detail how you do this? Is your server a Mac? What
software do you use to serve the TV signal? Is it just NTSC video you put in
the server? Or a true tuner that allows you to change channels?

Thanks,
DaveC

Look at

http://www.elgato.com/




In article <BB6CC5FE.14433%(E-Mail Removed)>, Mike Levin
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi all -
>
> I have a PC and also a Macintosh titanium laptop, both on a wireless
> network (802.11b). Is there any way to do either of these things:
>
> 1) be able to watch TV on the laptop in real-time; presumably there's
> some
> sort of analog-digital converter one can get for the cable TV output, but
> is
> there any way to have it compressed on the fly and sent wirelessly to the
> laptop via the wifi network?
>
> and,
>
> 2) how hard is it to recapitulate a TiVo-like system on a laptop (Mac or
> PC), so that it records programs to a hard-drive? And, can such a thing
> be
> accessed remotely (via wifi)?
>
> If anyone has any suggestions re. hardware and software for any of this,
> please cc: replies to (E-Mail Removed). Thanks!
>

In article <7Z_1b.241886$Ho3.31122@sccrnsc03>,
"Nite Rider" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I looked at the specs and found out that the resolution of eyetv is 352*240
> while NTSC resolution is somewhere around 525 lines. As you can see that is
> a big difference so I wonder what quality this thing would actually provide.

My wife uses one with her iBook. The quality is perfectly adequate, akin
to a soft VHS feed. The problem is not so much the EyeTV as the fact
that trying to play scaled 640x480 on a laptop LCD that is native
1024x768 will just always look fuzzy. You will have the same problem no
matter what you use, unless you play it in a small window.

Regardless, it is not wireless, and I know of no wireless TV card for a
Mac.

--
Chicago, IL
Remove "GO" to reply.

On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 09:44:23 -0500, Phil Lefebvre
<p-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>In article <7Z_1b.241886$Ho3.31122@sccrnsc03>,
> "Nite Rider" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I looked at the specs and found out that the resolution of eyetv is 352*240
>> while NTSC resolution is somewhere around 525 lines. As you can see that is
>> a big difference so I wonder what quality this thing would actually provide.
>
>My wife uses one with her iBook. The quality is perfectly adequate, akin
>to a soft VHS feed. The problem is not so much the EyeTV as the fact
>that trying to play scaled 640x480 on a laptop LCD that is native
>1024x768 will just always look fuzzy.

So play it in a window. But that's not the issue - the problem is the
very limited resolution of the USB capture device - 352*240 is low. I
capture in higher resolutions when I use my TV tuner - the difference
is noticeable.

> You will have the same problem no
>matter what you use, unless you play it in a small window.

Not really. When you capture at higher resolutions, scaling works a
lot better.

>Regardless, it is not wireless, and I know of no wireless TV card for a
>Mac.

But you can capture on the PC, DiVX it, and then play that file on the
Mac fairly easily.

> I looked at the specs and found out that the resolution of eyetv is 352*240
> while NTSC resolution is somewhere around 525 lines. As you can see that is
> a big difference so I wonder what quality this thing would actually provide.

You are confusing resolution with geometry. Your NTSC signal is 525
horizontal drawn lines (If I recall, it's actually 640 but then I'm not
in the US and know a whole lot more about PAL), resolution is the
ability to resolve vertical lines. If you have ever seen a test card
you'll have seen a number of vertical black/white grids, each getting
finer and finer until they tend to grey. That ability to distinguish
between those black and white lines is defined by the resolution of the
device.

In answer to your question, VHS is about 352 x 240.

David.

In article <240820031326420547%(E-Mail Removed)>,
Thomas Reed <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> In article <p-lefebvre-(E-Mail Removed)>,
> Phil Lefebvre <p-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> > > I looked at the specs and found out that the resolution of eyetv is
> > > 352*240
> >
> > My wife uses one with her iBook. The quality is perfectly adequate, akin
> > to a soft VHS feed.
>
> So, can one play video recorded with an EyeTV back to the TV from the
> computer? And if so, is the quality of the image on the TV equivalent
> to the quality of the original broadcast would have been on the TV? Or
> is the image degraded noticably?


The image is degraded, but not badly. I've got an EyeTV and I've done
just such a test using the S-Video out on my PowerBook and the Aux input
into my television. The EyeTV captured program looked a little worse
than the original.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect
if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."

In article <p-lefebvre-(E-Mail Removed)>,
Phil Lefebvre <p-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Regardless, it is not wireless, and I know of no wireless TV card for a
> Mac.

I spoke too soon. This was just posted on MacNN. See if it works for
you. I know I will be trying it soon.

<http://www.lucid-cake.net/cytv/index_en.html>

There's more cool stuff here:

<http://www.macware.be/eyetv.php>

--
Chicago, IL
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