Hauppauge WinTV-GO and Digital Cable

[Ioman]

I have the Hauppauge WinTV-GO card in my Gateway 901X Media Center PC and have decided to switch from satellite to digital cable. Would I still need the Comcast digital cable box, or can I plug the coaxial cable directly into the Hauppauge WinTV-GO card? Basically, does this tuner card support digital cable? It would be nice to not have to pay monthly for the set top box if this tuner card already supports it.

[Ioman]

Did some searching on the Microsoft Newsgroups and found out that you do need the set top box and an IR repeater to get it to work with the TV tuner cards.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel an IR repeater just feels cheap? Do they make PC TV Tuner cards that support digital cable directly so you do not need to use those IR repeaters?

The lag between switching channels is a very tacky. That and sometimes the two guides overlap.

I do not have Digital Cable yet but I am hoping that you can turn off the guide on the Comcast box so only the MCE guide shows up.

[neuroking]

Yeah, it's very tacky. Mostly because the cable companies want to make sure no one actually watches their channels, so they all use a different method of encryption. Supposedly ther was some bill that was supposed to standardize cable transmissions, but I haven't heard anythign about it lately.

HTPCs will only really see their full potential once all transmission are standardized. Until then, expect lots of hacks for stupidly simple things.