Watching NTL on PC

dublinfella

Greetings folks,

I have read an article today about watching SKY on PC

Connecting via your Sky Digibox - This is the easiest and cheapest - you need to run an aerial lead (coax) from the RF output socket of your Sky Digibox, to the input aerial socket on a standard PC TV card or USB TV adapter. This way, you can watch and record whatever channel the Digibox is tuned into. You need to use the PC card's software to "tune in" to the TV channel that your Digibox uses (the 'modulated' RF output channel).

Can I do the same with my NTL box? Will it work?


Cheers,

Alex.

Mossy Monk

If the ntl box has an RF output socket then I don't see why not.

watty

Though SCART --> RGB to S-Video converter (not dumb connector) --> S-Video in on capture/TV card is hugely better quality.

Use stereo line in of soundcard

The RF modulators only give mono and are much, much poorer quality signal than TV aerial signal, which is poorer than S-Video.

While RGB is technically able to be higher quality than S-Video, the digital encoding methods actually make it the same quality. (lower bandwidth UV encoding)

Yakuza

With the right PC, it's possible to not only watch NTL via your PC, but record it too.

I have my media centre PC connected to the scart out of my NTL set top box, so what the NTL box is showing is sent to the PC. (Any PC that has composite video and audio inputs should be able to do this).

In addition, you can connect an "IR Blaster" from your PC to the NTL box, which allows the PC to change channels on the STB. With Microsoft Media Center (comes standard on Vista Home Premium) I can download around two weeks' worth of tv schedules as well, which is much better than NTLs own EPG. The end result of this is I have a fully functioning PVR. I've not used a VHS tape to record stuff in nearly 2 years. Were it not for the young'un having a sh!tload of videos on VHS, I'd have gotten rid of the video from the living room.

I know there are freeware equivalents for recording stuff off the TV, but I've not had to learn about them since encountering "Media Center".

dublinfella

Thanks for the advice folks!

Alex.

icdg

If your box only has SCART-out, one option is to run the output through a VCR and connect its RF-out to your TV card.

Yavvy

If I dont have an SVideo Cable can I do this Though SCART --> RGB --> to compsite video on TV card / audio into the video card

and what is this IR blaster thingy ? where can I get one

Thanks
Alan

watty wrote: »

Though SCART --> RGB to S-Video converter (not dumb connector) --> S-Video in on capture/TV card is hugely better quality.

Use stereo line in of soundcard

The RF modulators only give mono and are much, much poorer quality signal than TV aerial signal, which is poorer than S-Video.

While RGB is technically able to be higher quality than S-Video, the digital encoding methods actually make it the same quality. (lower bandwidth UV encoding)

J-blk

Alany wrote: »

If I dont have an SVideo Cable can I do this Though SCART --> RGB --> to compsite video on TV card / audio into the video card
and what is this IR blaster thingy ? where can I get one

Yes you can, though the quality is not as good as using S-Video, as Watty pointed out. A "dumb" SCART to RGB connector will work just fine - in fact, that's what I currently use to send the NTL cable box signal to a Slingbox.

You can get an IR blaster as part of the MCE remote control kit - it actually has two connectors for controlling two cable/satellite boxes/other devices:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=309575

The IR blaster is simply a small connector that is stuck over the IR receiver on the NTL box and allows you to control it directly from the PC via both the MCE remote and the MCE software - it also allows applications such as Windows Media Center to switch the channel as needed when you have scheduled recordings, etc.

Yavvy

thanks for this my big issue is I have a DELL XP media centre but i bought the PC in canada and the computer is saying it does not support ireland...

J-blk

Alany wrote: »

thanks for this my big issue is I have a DELL XP media centre but i bought the PC in canada and the computer is saying it does not support ireland...

What do you mean the PC does not support Ireland? Did you change all the regional settings to Ireland in Windows (and I still don't know which version of Windows you have - XP Media Center 2004, 2005 or Vista?)?

Depending on what updates you've installed, you may need to install (in XP MCE 2005) the Rollup Update 2 which added Ireland as a fully supported country for the EPG, etc. Here's some info on it and what other updates you may need installed:

http://support.microsoft.com/KB/900325

Now there is still a chance that your TV tuner may not quite work correctly in Europe, but if you only want to connect a cable box, then you should be able to do so via the composite/S-Video on the card. Do you have a link to your system's specs? I'd guess that most the issues you've come accross are software related...