TV Cards

[aj2703]

Hi.

Wondered if you guys could help...

In my flat i have a coax socket in the wall in the living room. This is apparently linked to one in my bedroom. This enables me to watch sky in my bedroom, but with the restriction of only being able to watch what is on the box in the living room. At the moment i have not actually set this up as i do not have a TV in the bedroom. However this is where i have my PC. What i am wondering is this. Can i install a TV Card into my pc with a coaxal port so i can watch my sky through that via my pc monitor..?

 

[mrtckane]

Hi.

Wondered if you guys could help...

In my flat i have a coax socket in the wall in the living room. This is apparently linked to one in my bedroom. This enables me to watch sky in my bedroom, but with the restriction of only being able to watch what is on the box in the living room. At the moment i have not actually set this up as i do not have a TV in the bedroom. However this is where i have my PC. What i am wondering is this. Can i install a TV Card into my pc with a coaxal port so i can watch my sky through that via my pc monitor..?

test this with another tv first, as this whole scenario sounds wrong.

unless it's an old old sky setup you have going on there, i can't imagine a raw sattelite image coming through the coax, however it very well might be (1).

if it's a newer setup it'll be the encrypted signal coming directly from the dish (2).

depending on the setup you will need:

1) an analogue or hybrid tuner with an analogue input AND an rf modulator or signal booster to pull in the rf signal.

2) a dvb-s enabled card to decrypt the sattelite signal... for this you might need codes, subscriber number etc (beyond the scope of my knowledge)

 

[honosuseri]

My gf has a similar setup in her student apartment. The sky sports channels are on analogue but the co-axial cable will allow you to tune into freeview if plugged into a digibox (rf-out to tv so tv can do analogue channels)

As mrtckane said a hybrid tuner would be best as this covers both freeview and analogue. A DTV booster wouldn't hurt, you can find them for around a tenner.

Hope we've helped

 

[aj2703]

Hi guys.

I did the cardinal sin and spoke to the tech guy at PC world. He was very helpful indeed, moreso then the sales guy who i first approached. Anyway he basically said that what i wanted to do was easily achievable. All i had to do was connect the coaxil cable to the RF out on my sky one end, the other into the socket on the wall. The attach another coax to the wall in my bedroom install a card he recommended which was the, Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100 - DVB-T receiver / analogue TV tuner / video input adapter - PCI - Plug-in card. This actually had the 1110 chip on it after opening so i reckon it is a newer version. Anyway i installed that into my pc. Connected the coaxil lead to the card, enabled the rf output through the sky box and set the card to channel 68. It picked it up straight away. First time anything has gone as it should at the first attempt i was impressed. The quality is what i would call fairly good. It's not as good as it is on my flatscreen straight from the box but i guess it will suffer some loss of quality because it's coaxil..? Maybe you guys could give me some pointers on a higher quality cable that might give me better results as i am using some cable i found in the garage. Any help on that would be appreciated.

 

[davieg]

Hiya mate,
CT100 is what is recommended to make coaxial fly leads from, but what problem are you seeing on screen, are you getting herringbones , ghosting , fuzziness etc.
Any of the above can sometimes be solved by altering the RF output on the sky box, but your not going to get as clearer picture as you do via scart etc.
If you need a hand altering the RF output give us a shout.

Dave.

 

[aj2703]

Hiya mate,
CT100 is what is recommended to make coaxial fly leads from, but what problem are you seeing on screen, are you getting herringbones , ghosting , fuzziness etc.
Any of the above can sometimes be solved by altering the RF output on the sky box, but your not going to get as clearer picture as you do via scart etc.
If you need a hand altering the RF output give us a shout.

Dave.

Hi dave, yeah any tips on altering the rf output would be great, i don't suppose it will hurt to try, as for the pic it is ok, kinda like watching a dvd, slightly fuzzy...

 

[davieg]

Which sky box is it , Regular, sky plus, HD etc as the way to get to the settings is slighty different on, and how is the box connected to your main TV, dont want to get you to alter settings and have to alter them back blind lol.

Anyway to get to the RF menu you need to press the buttons on the remote in the following order.

Services
4
0
1
Select
4
And your in the settings to alter the RF Output, if 68 is off I usually try 38 and 30 as alternative settings, then save the settings and go see if you have any improvement, you will need to retune in your TV card though.
But check that your main TV is connected to the sky box via scart, hdmi, svid etc not rf or you will have to retune that too or alter the settings back blind
TBH though if your getting something close to DVD quality through RF your not going to get much more improvement, depends how bad the fuzz is to you.
Dave.

 

[aj2703]

Which sky box is it , Regular, sky plus, HD etc as the way to get to the settings is slighty different on, and how is the box connected to your main TV, dont want to get you to alter settings and have to alter them back blind lol.

Hi.

It's connected via a HDMI Lead and it's a Sky+ HD. Sorry when i said the pic was like a dvd i meant an old video tape like picture

 

[davieg]

K m8 your fine to try different RF settings then as you will always be able to go back and see what your doing on the main TV.
Take a note of what its set at now(its usually 68 by default) so you can change it back if it all goes worse.
And feel free to try different numbers than the ones I mentioned, they just seem to work well around where I mainly cover.

Dave.