Saturday, December 5, 2009

Watch HDTV On Your Computer

By Dorothy Grant

Watching HD TV on your PC is so simple even the most PC illiterate of us should be able to do it. There are two easy methods to achieve this objective. The 1st way is to invest in a piece of hardware which turns your PC in to a TV. The second way is to simply use one of the many internet HDTV broadcasters.

To turn you computer into a television you will required to spend some money on hardware. You will need a PC TV tuner card, they can either come with USB or PCI interfaces. You can use the PCI version with a desktop PC, the USB versions can be used with a laptop or desktop (as long as you have a free USB port). The adaptor is used to decode the TV signal and display it on you desktop or notebook.

Both type of HDTV adaptors come with many different features, not only do they allow you to watch television broadcasts on your PC they have features such as, radio stations, video and audio capture and live pause. Most types come with software which will have to be installed.

Some TV tuner adaptors have inbuilt aerials and/or a connector for an external aerial that comes supplied. For the best result you might want to check if the adaptor has the right type of connectors to connect to your satellite or set-top box if that?s your chosen method of viewing. They normally come with software to tune the adaptor into the TV channels and allow you to perform other functions like recording and pausing TV channels.

TV tuner adaptors do not cost much (you can pick them up for less than $60). They are readily available online from most computer retailers. Makers of HDTV tuners include Creative, Leadtek, ATI and Pinnacle. When choosing the adaptor be sure to choose one which is HD capable if you require to watch high definition broadcasts.

The next option available to enable viewing television on your computer is via websites that stream TV channels over the web. The choice or providers is wide and there are over 3000 channels available online.

If you already have a desktop or laptop with an internet connection, then the chances are you already have everything you need to get going. The main thing is that that you have a reasonably fast internet connection, 2 mega bits / sec should be ok.

If you do a quick search on Google for ?watch HDTV online? you should be provided with a host of results for providers of internet TV. You will have to research which is the best for you. Are you prepared to pay for a service? If so the quality of pictures and number of channels available will be better. There are however sites which are totally free to use.

The benefits of this type of service are that firstly they are far cheaper than watching conventional television channels as you don?t have to subscribe to a satellite or cable company. Also if you already have a PC with an internet connection then you don?t need to spend hundreds on a HD television and TV receiver.

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