Computer Corner

July 2009

TV for Nothin’ and Record it for Free
By Guruka Singh

After I wrote last month’s column on Windows 7, Microsoft announced the official release date as October 22nd. You can buy it in advance for less than ½ price.  I paid $49 each for three licenses from Amazon.com. It comes in four flavors: “Basic” (don’t bother!) “Home Premium” (this is the one to get if you do not need to join a domain) “Professional” (if you use your computer on a network like the Sikh Dharma network, i.e. in the office then you will need this version.) And “Ultimate” which you probably will not need since all it gives you over the other versions is “BitLocker” encryption to encrypt your files (there are other programs that can do this for a lot less money) along with your choice of the Windows interface in any of 32 languages. The “Home Premium” version will sell for $149 when it hits the street in October, so purchasing it now in advance of the release date gets you a really worthwhile discount.

If you use Cable or satellite to watch television (and, if you’re lucky, to TiVo it as well – i.e., record TV automatically for later viewing) then you do have a very good FREE alternative for watching television. Especially now since the FCC mandated the “Digital Transition” date on June 12th so you can get all the “network” stations for free over the air with nothing but a simple antenna. This includes CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS, WB (now called CW) and “My Network.” That’s a lot of programming for free.  Not only can you receive these stations for free in glorious, crystal-clear, digital High Definition, but you can even TiVo your programs for free. This can save you a lot of money!  What do you need to do this?

1. A TV (duh!) Even an older one is okay, though you won’t be able to enjoy High Definition images unless you have a newer Hi-Def TV.
2. A computer running Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 with a video capture card in it. (Remember, Windows 7 is free to use till June 1010 if you download it before August 7th 2009 from Microsoft.) More about the ‘capture card’ later.
3. An antenna - indoor or outdoor depending on where your house is. A great online source for antennas is www.antennasdirect.com that’s where I got my antenna.

You can easily re-purpose an older computer as a ‘Media Center’ and the Windows Media Center software (which is free since it comes with Windows XP or later versions of Windows) will download the television program guide and allow you to select programs you want to record and then record them to the hard drive in your computer for later viewing at your convenience. If the computer you use has a DVD drive, all the better; you can use it to view DVD movies as well as watch TV eliminating the need for an external DVD player.

In order to connect your computer to your TV you need a graphics card that has a compatible output. Many video cards and laptops have an S-Video output which can be easily connected to even an older analog TV. (It’s the round black one in the middle of the pic on the right.) If you have a newer HD TV you can use the DVI output which is the same port that you might use to connect to a computer screen (it’s the white 28 pin connector.)

I recommend the Hauppauge brand of TV tuner cards. You can get a single tuner, 2-tuner card or a 3-tuner card. They come with a handy remote control. Here’s a pic of the HVR-3000 3-tuner card.
The Hauppauge 1196 WinTV card (a single-tuner card) costs about $52 at Amazon.com, (or you can get one at Best Buy) but spending a bit more to get a multi-tuner card will allow you to watch one program while you are simultaneously recording others. Simply plug the tuner card into a spare PCI slot in the desktop PC you want to use as a Media Center, hook up your antenna (if you are using multiple tuners you’ll need a signal splitter – a $15 Radio Shack item) and you can watch or record TV, turning your PC into a personal video recorder that lets you record, play, and pause live TV, and use your hard disc to store recorded programs. A one-hour High Definition TV show takes up approximately 1 GB of hard drive space, and you can even burn TV programs and movies to a blank DVD if you have a DVD writer in your PC.

If you want to use a laptop computer, there are little USB TV tuner adaptors you can use instead of a card. They work just the same and you don’t have to open up the computer to plug a PCI card into a slot.
There are many guides on the Internet to setting up a Media PC. Gurumustuk Singh wrote a recent Blog post about it at http://shuurl.com/H5458 and here’s a link to a well-written online guide that gives you all the details: http://shuurl.com/W5459

Please keep letting me know if this column is useful to you and also keep sending me your suggestions for column topics, along with your own tips or cool downloads, so I can share them with the Sangat here. Just email them to me at guruka@sikhnet.com