pc tv tuners

vangndy · 12-21-2005, 05:10 PM

Anyone have any experience with these cards? I just bought an ATI TV Wonder Pro PCI card, i can only get 2 channels, 4 and 13. Previously when i had the cable plugged in to my TV, 4 would be whatever the station was on the tv the receiver was hooked up to, additionally i got the other "free" channels. Now i get the same channel 4 (whatever is on the receiver) and one of the "free" channels. I was hoping this product would allow to me watch something other than what was on in the other room. What do i need to do so? Will getting another receiver allow two different stations on two different tvs? Any help would be appreciated.

RickM · RickM's Garage

The tuner on the card should allow you to watch any channel your cable offers up. Just as iff you hooked up another tv to the cable.

vangndy · 12-21-2005, 05:49 PM

Fyi we have Dish network, (Satellite), don't know if that would make a difference. I very skilled with computers, but have never messed with our tv connections before. Tomorrow i am going down below the house to check out all the cables down there and try to figure out the layout. I think that maybe the signal i am getting is coming off the receiver and that the receiver is choking all the satellite signal to only display the one channle. If that's the case i will split the signal before it hits the reciever and and use my tunere to control the signal. It just seems odd that i currently get two channels right now, whatever the receiver is on and the local cbs station. But what if the roof mounted satellite dish is th chokepoint and the orbiting satellite only beams down one channle at a time.... then I am screwed right? I just don't know anything about our satellite connection. Any thoughts? This http://www.ati.com/products/tvwonderpro/index.html is my receiver

FrayAdjacent911 · 12-21-2005, 05:57 PM

If you are running off of a satellite connection, your TV tuner card would have to support it. Satellite is NOT cable.

RickM · RickM's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by FrayAdjacent911
Satellite is NOT cable.

Yep...did I overlook that?

I have the AIW 2006 Edition and the manual does not mention satellite as a supported input. A call to ATI may be needed.

FrayAdjacent911 · 12-21-2005, 06:31 PM

If it says it's supported... Check if it has to be connected AFTER the decoder/satellite box. It might not be able to handle the signal straight fron the dish.

Meaning..

Dish ----- decoder box ----- TV
\
------ PC

Also, check if the software needs to scan for channels. I have an external unit that requires scanning all the way through the band to find the channels. If you skip it, it will not be able to display channels correctly.

RickM · RickM's Garage

Matt, I thought the same thing...but I don't think you can run more than one TV off of one receiver/decoder box since it is the tuner. Therefore the ATI card tuner become useless.

FrayAdjacent911 · 12-21-2005, 06:47 PM

Yeah, if you can only run one TV off of the tuner, yeah, you're stuck. You'd need another satellite tuner to connect the PC to. The PC tuner does act as a 'tuner' in similar sense as the TV/cable/sat box, but it also encodes and feeds video to the computer that the computer can render.

You'd have to check on the situation... you might need another satellite box to feed the PC tuner off of...

snowman · 12-21-2005, 06:56 PM

Satellite tuners "convert" satillite signals, which are also encoded to standard tv signals that any tuner can handle. However they only do this for a single channel and are not capable of multiple channels at one time. In other words you need a satillite tuner for each independant tv. Didn't have to be this way but it makes more bucks and was cheeper (for them). I have made my own satillite receiver, but the decoder is technically illegal to make, at least to sell. My personal point of view is that if the signal comes into my house, its fair game. But then I don't care to watch TV all that much to begin with.

84porsche · 84porsche's Garage

It depends on what exactly you are trying to do. You can obviously get the local channels or over the air channels but I am sure its a software setting if they are coming in clean on a TV and not on the PC. I have the ATI All In Wonder Pro, its a few years old but still works fantastic. For satellite input, you will not be able to use the TV guide software unless they have updated it but run a splitter from your satellite box (one to the TV and the other to the computer) and just have it come in on the AV input and you can switch the video modes for recording/watching stuff on satellite vs over the air or if you get local channels on your satellite then you only need the one input.

84porsche · 84porsche's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by vangndy
Will getting another receiver allow two different stations on two different tvs? Any help would be appreciated.

Depending on whether you have Dish Network/DirectTV or some other sat company, you can add a 2nd receiver but your dish needs to have a dual LNB as they call it and a separate line needs to run to that area of the house. If you want the sat on the PC instead of the TV or watch both at the same time, that is just a matter of getting the cables right.