Dual TV card help

Padders · 11 Apr 2007 at 11:18

I’m after a PCI dual Freeview card to use with Vista’s media centre, I’ve been looking at the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition but need to know whether I can pass through the aerial signal to my plasma – so if I want to I can entirely bypass the PC.

Basically I need to know whether I can run the aerial lead to the pc and then from the pc to the plasma? Googling hasn’t really cleared this up for me.

Cheers.

sahjin · 11 Apr 2007 at 11:19

well your at the best place to ask !! (sorry im not well up on tv cards) :cool:

dalepearson · 11 Apr 2007 at 11:23

Hiya,

you cannot bypass the PC in the method you have discussed.
When running the signal via the dual tuner, the signal will be sent via VGA. SVIDEO, etc.

To bypass the PC you will need to slit the antenna input, and run a coax to the TV and a coax to the PC. This will then allow you to bypass the PC if / when required.

Or Unplug the coax from back of PC and plug into TV when required.

mwtb · 11 Apr 2007 at 11:26

Just an added point. Even if you buy a card that does allow a signal pass-through, you really don't want to use it as the card/PC will invariably add a lot of noise to the signal. Buy a splitter and extra bits of co-ax, it'll only be a few quid.

Padders · 11 Apr 2007 at 11:52

Ah thanks, yeah I thought as much - I'd thought about splitting the input but thought that would degrade the signal more than actualy just passing it through.

Deffo food for thought - I'm now wondering how good my signal to plasma actually is - it's currently running through my video to dvd recorder to HD freeview box to plasma... never noticed the picture degrading tho...

Does splitting reduce the signal strength?

Cheers.