PC TV for a novice?

Hatter

I've read some posts here about Free to air Tv using a PC. Well, as we all know too well, a TV licence here in Ireland is €152 a year and rising. Not to mention the cost of a basic NTL connection and then if you want cable etc. It keeps rising.

I have a AMD PC with an AS ROCK motherboard, 256MB DDR memory, 80GB hard Drive, CD RW, an external 8X DVD+/-RW and a Typhoon PVR TV BOX.
I have been capturing my old VHS tapes and Burning them onto DVD. Thats well and good. I can view Air TV with a basic antenna but only get the 4 Irish channels. I am in Dublin. If I plug my pipe lead into it I get the NTL basic channels. I thought about all of this and came to the conclusion that I am being ripped off. I want to close my NTL account and throw out my TV.

I want Free to air TV, or freeware digital TV or whatever. I have heard a nasty rumour that the ROI doesn't allow free to air TV? Can anyone confirm?

And with the things I have on my PC now, what do I need to get free to air channels, not just Irish, but European or American? I have no satellite dish and would prefer not to have a dish outside on the roof, and I have no decoder or any cable box or alike. If I need a satellite....so be it, but if there is a good freeware compatible Antenna or whatever, better. DO I need a DVB card? As my thread title says, I am a Novice to this and anyone that I have emailed, including people at Typhoon, nobody can tell me exactly what I need to do in reasonably understandable terms, and in fact, nobody could answer my satellite dish queries either. So if there is anyone out there who reckons they can talk me through it by posting here, please, please, do so?
What can I get in Dublin with a freeware compatible Antenna connected to a PVR? And if the answer is merely the 4 Irish Channels, then tell me what I need to do to get some european channels and some music channels etc?Thanks.....

SkepticOne

To recieve any sort of television whether it is on a TV or PC/whether it is digital or analogue/satellite or terestrial, you are legally obliged to have a TV licence.

Without a satellite dish, your "free to air" channels available are the two RTE channels, TG4 and TV3 and that's it.

I think by "freeware" you mean digital terrestrial like the "Freeview" service in Britain. There is no service of this kind in Ireland at present.

Your only option therefore is a satellite dish which will allow you to get hundreds of european free to air channels. Whether you get a satellite card for your PC or buy a free-to-air satellite reciever makes no difference to licence requirements. You are required to have a licence in either case.

If you go down the PC route, your PC should handle any of the available satellite cards including the cheaper budget ones such as the SkyStar2. The budget cards don't have a hardware decoder for mpeg2 but rely on the main processer to do the decoding.

Pal

I think by "freeware" you mean digital terrestrial like the "Freeview" service in Britain. There is no service of this kind in Ireland at present.

Not entirely true.
where you located Hatter ?


there are many solutions for free telly but you still pay a license whatever you decide.