[geeks] TV tuner Questions

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 07:04:07PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:

>Nothing from the cable company is free, except for the first set of
>batteries for your remote ;^)

:-)

>
>There are local channels (local netowrk affiliates, independent and
>PBS stations) that are part of "Basic Cable" - those appear to be
>wide-open, analog channels.

That's interesting, so they did not drop them the day they could, or is there
some other law that analog channels needed to be kept by cable companies? 
Or will they start charging for the "service"?

As in "want to keep your old TV?, Pay us $5 a month extra."

>Then there are other Basic Channels (CNN, USA Network, Fox News, TNT,
>etc.) those channels play commercials and allow the cable company to
>rebroadcast them AND insert a few local commercials without revenue
>sharing. These are typically called "Free Channels" (at least by me).

Actually they are not free. Some PAY the cable company to be placed there,
some CHARGE by number of subscribers to the system, very few are FREE.
Others are supported by your tax dollars, e.g. PBS, C-SPAN, etc.

>Then there are Premium channels, only available for an additional fee
>(typically a "Digital Cable" or "Premium" fee) like ESPN, Disney, etc.
>These channels are mixed together to make a package that appeals to
>the widest swath of consumers.

They also are mixed between free/pay the cable company/pay the provider.
That's why one system has different prices and packages than an other.

>Then there are subscription channels - HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc.
>These are subscribed to individually as a line item in the bill,
>either alone or as part of a package offer.

I remember those. I always liked the second ones, like HBO's Cinemax as 
opposed to their main channels. Now that function has been for me, replaced
by the internet. But I could not get them if I were willing to pay for them,
and downloads of files placed on servers outside the country are not illegal
here.

>My goal is to get local and basic cable channels decoded without the
>cable company decoder box. I don't think that is possible, but I am
>hopeful. The free converter box gives me channels 2-96, but my digital
>cable box, which I pay a monthly fee for, gives me several hundred
>channels.

I think you will find that it's not possible. :-(

The best you could hope for is an interface for the decoder card in your
PC, which you would still have to pay for. Here both the DBS and Cable 
systems rent/sell you a PVR. They are designed so that you can not move
the programs from them except by watching them, and you have to pay a montly
fee to access them.

I don't know about windows, but if you were to use one of the Linux based 
PVR's, you can build a remote control for a serial port for about $.10.
The minimum one is a serial port (which may be the most expensive part),
an IR LED and current limiting resistor (about 1k). 

When I had one set up, I actually had several devices controlled by the
same computer, I just used one resistor and several LEDs each next to the 
sensor for the device. The point one at them from across the room thing did
not work for me, they were all along the same wall.

I also had written some PERL programs to change channel on the DBS box, a
program to record a televison program (usable either from the command line
or CRON) and one to stream a program to another PC.

It all fell apart because Linus Torvalds and company dropped support for the
audio drivers for my TV card and removed the option of compatibility with 
older application software. It became a pissing contest between the kernel
developers and the application developers (VLC, MythTV, etc) and as always,
the users lost.

Geoff.



-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
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i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.