Media Center on Windows Vista HP Pavillion dv9500

[cactusJohn]

I have an HP Pavillion dv9500 with Windows Vista Ultimate, with Windows Media Center.  It works fine.  The TV stations I get have different numbering than the broadcast stations: 1051 stands for Channel 5 (CBS), 1121 stands for channel 12 (NBC), etc., Question: when February'09 comes and the broadcasters officially switch to digital will I be getting the channels my regular TV gets with the convertor-box I installed on it? -and why do the digital channels on my computer-TV differ from the the convertor-box ones, and why don't I get all the channels on the computer-TV that I get on the regular TV wit the convertor-box??? Sure who love to get some clarification on this!  THX,  cactusJohn

[DaveLembke]

As far as Computer TV goes...if you have a TV Tuner Card for your computer that is connected via Coax, then when the switch happens in 2009 you will need to add a digital to analog converter between the TV Tuner Card and your Cable Line -or- a splitter out of your digital box with the analog feed split between a physical TV and your Tuner Card, and what stinks about that is that that you can only capture or view the channel that the box is digitally translating so the many channels you have now will likely go down to simply channel 2, 3 or 4 and the digital box supplied by your cable company will be the only means by which to switch channels.

OR...  if you are lucky your TV Tuner Card in your computer is digital ready in which all you would need is a splitter before the digital box...."Most of the low end ones are not digital and strictly analog"

As far as the channel offset I dont have any advice as to why it is offset like that. I am guessing that maybe there may be a feature to customize your channel order maybe.