TV Tuner for PC

[wbond]

Has anyone used one or can recommend one of these? How well does it work? I'm looking to add one so i can watch live TV on my sim screen the same time i am playing. I'm currently doing this with my cable providers free PC app, but they have a limited amount of channels and no live local channels. It's great creating a little window and watching the golf tournament while playing TGC.

[mmlincon]

check out tablo tv. It doesn't go into your PC but allows you to play tuner tv from all kinds of devices. I can watch golf events at work now since I can pickup and stream the broadcasts. I work weekends so this was very useful for me.

[TorchRedRob]

Check out HDHomeRun. I have used one with a homemade HD antenna since 2011 or so when I cut the cord. They offer a few flavors of it now, but it works great. It plugs into your LAN, and you can access and stream from any connected device with their software.

If you want to get fancy, you can also create a movie and DVR server with stop-in-one-room / resume-in-another capability, awesome graphics and fanart, etc.

I have Kodi installed throughout my house, including on the sim PC. I have an attached monitor for TV or movies, and I can play JNPG while running Kodi without issue.

Let me know if you're interested in more info. Currently, I'm using unRAID as my server software on a dedicated headless machine. It also houses tvheadend as my TV/DVR server and Emby as my movie server/database. Then, I have Libreelec as my Kodi client software located at each TV to access and control the whole thing. At each TV, I can select from my movie collection and start a movie immediately (no discs to deal with), I can watch live TV or recorded TV, or I can watch internet content from the same interface. I can also access my movie collection from the internet and transcode on the fly for phones or tablets through the Emby software. I guess all of that is not such a big deal now, since a lot of the big cable and satellite providers are finally getting around to this sort of thing. But, 5 years ago, it was pretty cutting-edge and I thought I was cool

Google some of that stuff if you're interested to know more (or just PM me). Short answer- a TV tuner card should work fine, but a HDHomeRun device will give you flexibility to access the tuners anywhere on your network.

[goatbarn]

I'm a Plex,VPN, torrent, HTPC, Kodi guy too. Just have to buy internet is all. Awesome stuff.

[awisnia]

TorchRedRob are you running the Kodi/openELEC on pi's? I was just about to try out a jail-broken amazon fire. Also, have you ever used an xbox with HDhomerun? Can get mine to play the stream.

[TorchRedRob]

awisnia I'm running on older Intel atom/ion Zboxes from Zotac. I haven't tried the pi or other dedicated stuff like Wetek, etc. I don't have an Xbox, so unfortunately I'm no help on that one. It's neat to see several people have similar interests with this stuff on this forum. Not surprising, I guess. Like-minded people probably.

[awisnia]

wbond I Use the SiliconDust stuff - it takes HD broadcast, or cable tv and serves it up on your home network for viewing on PCs, tablets, phones, etc. There's one for broadcast or free cable, and another that will take a cable card from comcast (or whomever) and give you all of your channels including premium. The later has three tuners, so you can watch cable without the cost of a box at each viewing location.

The Pc app is pretty foolproof and allows windowed or full screen. It's actually turned our sim projector/screen into another wide screen viewing area without a tuner box.

you can find these on eBay for less that $100

https://www.silicondust.com/product/hdhomerun-connect/

[awisnia]

SiliconDust makes the HDHomeRun that TorchRedRob is using...you've got three votes! HD is best over Ethernet, but works on AC wifi.

[Stingreye]

Silicondust for the win! I may have the older box that doesn't take the cable card lying around. If you want me to hunt for it, I will sell it to you cheap. If you plug the coax directly into a tv that supports quam, that's what you would get with the old box. The cable card one gives you almost everything (no pay per view).

[wbond]

Clearly we are way behind the times at my house. At least i am anyway. We don't have any of this, so im guessing my kids have something on their phones as they don't complain. Anyway, thanks for the replies, i will be looking into this as it seems i have a lot of options.

[awisnia]

Pretty simple stuff - kids don't watch tv. The watch videos on YouTube at full volume of some guy playing video games with a voice that cuts my ears like fingernails on chalkboard.

[Laboroflove]

I hooked up a Hauppague Digital TV Tuner from amazon to my sim computer earlier this year for the exact reason from the original post. It works great and was easy to install and about $60. Hooks an antenna(included or use your own) to computer through USB. Typically put the PGA golf or the NFL onto the monitor screen with the Sim running on the projector. Gets the job done without any fuss.