Using my notebook as a TIVO

[exingo]

I would like to purchase an external USB PVR card for my notebook so I can use it as a TIVO.

1. From what I understand, these types of cards for computers do not require a monthly subscription fee like TIVO. Is this true? If so, how do they make their money

2. Can anyone recommend a good external card to use with my notebook?

3. The cards that I am looking at state "125 channel cable ready TV tuner " what does this mean? What if I have 160 channels?

Thanks!!!!

 

[Crashman]

OMG!

First of all USB devices are not good for this purpose. Pinacle makes a USB 2.0 version, but you'd need a USB 2.0 port to get it up to speed.

1. How do manufacturers of TV input devices make their money? Hehe, how do manufacturers of VCR's make their money? It's just a device that turns your PC (including laptops) into a video recorder.

2. I'd go with the unit I mentioned above.

3. There AREN'T more than 125 standard cable channels, you need a special cable box to get more (even on a television), in which case the cable box is the tuner, and has to be connected to the PVR as an input device.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[exingo]

So what would happen if I try to use this device with a USB 1.0 port on my notebook? Why are usb devices not good for this?

As far as my question regarding how they make their $, I meant with Tivo charging $ for a subscription fee and the cards for computers not requiring subscription fees, I'm just curious how they are able to provide a similar service with the downloadable tv listings for free.

Thanks!

 

[Crashman]

It would work on a USB 1.0 port, but might be choppy. USB 1.0 is an EXTEMELY old standard that's no faster than your old parallel printer port, at 1.2MB/s (1.2 megabites=10 megabits). The Pinacle box also has the advantage of onboard MPEG2 compression, which means the data can be smaller as it goes through the cable, so it would work better than an non-hardware-compression solution on USB1, but better still on USB2.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>