TV on laptop

[ailetlvo]

One of my friends was watching a basketball game on his computer, and I asked him if he downloaded it. He said no, he was watching the TV on the comp. My brother said you need a TV Tuner card to do that. How does that work?

 

[prhamil52]

There are internal and external TV Tuner cards: PCI slot for desktops and USB for desktops or laptops. Mine is the former with cable running into the Tuner card.

 

[BladeVenom]

Also PCMCIA cards for laptops. There are a few laptops that have TV tuners built in.

 

[deathwalker]

This would do the trick.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814144308

 

[vegetation]

Which would use more/less cpu cycles, usb2 based or pcmcia? I want to minimize the fan kicking in on my laptop when using one of these.

 

[Comp625]

Does anyone know the answer to vegetation's question? I'd like to know also!

 

[Brainonska511]

I would think PCMCIA would use less CPU cycles since USB uses the CPU as it's controller. Though, I may be wrong.

 

[S Freud]

If you have a TV tuner card do you have to have cable to run to it or something else to watch it on your laptop? If you're already paying for the cable why watch it on the tiny laptop screen?

 

[Ionizer86]

Originally posted by: S Freud
If you have a TV tuner card do you have to have cable to run to it or something else to watch it on your laptop? If you're already paying for the cable why watch it on the tiny laptop screen?

You're gonna get the same thing you'd get if you connected a TV to the wall that you'll get on the laptop screen. Why watch on the tiny screen? Well, in a dorm room for example, TV tuner card = much less stuff than an entire TV, and if you have an external LCD connected to your laptop, who said the screen has to be small?

I hear that one of my friends messed around with a software descrambler in Linux so he could get some more channels. I guess if that works out well, that's another thing you can do with the signal going to a computer vs going to the TV.