Watching/recording TV on a PC

[Stephen Coates]

What is the best way to go about watching and recording digital television (freeview) on a PC?

I have been watching less and less of channels 1-5 recently but have been making good use of my Mum's PVR to record programmes on the digital channels. Although I have now learnt how to use the PVR, it is irritating having to either a) watch the TV downstairs where it is cold and I can't see the TV properly or b) bring the PVR upstairs to my bedroom.

Unfortunately my Goodmans freeview box broke so using that to record onto VHS is not an option.

I could just buy a PVR of my own, but if I am going to record television onto a hard disk, I would prefer it to be accessible by my computer. Hence having some kind of digital TV tuner card with the option to record onto the hard disk with timers/EPG like a PVR would be a good idea.

Any ideas?

[Harrison]

You can buy Digital Tuner cards for the PC that have PVR software with them and allow you to record to HDD.

Hauppauge make some good ones, and even have some Dual tuner cards so you can record one channel and watch another at the same time. They also do PCI-Express 1x cards, and I think your new motherboard has a PCI-E 1x slot, so it would keep your PCI slots free if you needed them later for older hardware.

Their cards also work with Windows Media Centre (comes built into Windows 7 as standard) to watch, pause and record TV just like a full PVR set top box or Sky box.

Have a look at http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/prod...hvr2200mc.html

and at http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/prod...ods_mckit.html which comes with a media centre remote for full control.