Computer Hope
Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: hiyou on September 20, 2009, 01:55:16 PM
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I would like to watch TV on my laptop.
How do I connect the TV-cable (from the wall) into a laptop (which has vga, usb, pc card)? what adapter would i need to buy?
thanks.
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Several companies make a TV tuner card to plugs into your PC card slot. Make sure you get one that does digital or clear QAM and not just analog.
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You need to buy a cable and plug it in. I believe it's a vga cable but the store knows what they are called.
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Ignore the above post. rthompson80819 has it right - you need a tv tuner card.
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hiyou, If your objective is to " I would like to watch TV on my laptop." and NOT to want to necessarily use your coax cable from your external source then you can do so provided you have a high speed connection available to your laptop and it is a sufficiently recent computer with adequate RAM. You will be limited as to what you can watch by virtue of the limitations of the particular types of TV you desire to watch and whether you MUST be watching it as it is produced. If on the other hand you don't mind watching shows than can be hours to a day old then many commercial channels and PBS (U.S.) make their shows available on line. Also many channels do live web based streaming of news programming. But if you want to watch let us say a current sports event as it is happening that is unlikely to be available at initial time of broadcast. If you do want to do what i have mentioned and meet the earlier stated requirements then you don't need anything other than a proprietary software for the particular channel you want to watch. These are always made available free by the station on their website. An alternative for what it's worth depending on your desires.truenorth
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You need to buy a cable and plug it in. I believe it's a vga cable but the store knows what they are called.
Hey, I like this answer.
IGNORE THE comment about buying a TV Tuner!
(Unless you just like to spend money,)
If your TV or VCR has the standard outputs, you can buy a USB adapter.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31u0v-J%2Bx6L._SL160_AA160_.jpg)
Here is a link from Amazon. Others also sell these.
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=video+usb+adapter&tag=googhydr-20&index=electronics&hvadid=3135567711&ref=pd_sl_6zutyfe2jm_b
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Geek, the adapter you show and reference are made for different uses. The standard cable TV connector is an F connector and the adapters you reference use RCA connectors. You could use a VCR or some cable boxes that have RCA optputs to feed the USB adapters you showed but that seems like a lot of trouble.
The cable output is RF and RCA connectors are for baseband.
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There is also a TV tuner that plugs into a USB port.