HDTV on your PC

A couple of months ago I started looking for a way to capture high definition TV (HDTV) for later viewing. Last season I had been following the TV shows Lost and Prison Break. While both shows have full episodes available the next day on their websites, I wanted something like a TiVo, but without the monthly subscription fees. I wanted a digital video recorder (DVR) that would give me the flexibility of being able to record shows that are not available online. I previously wrote about the flexibility and ease of use of console-base DVD recorders. Yes, they work, but as time went on I kept having problems with the recorder not recognizing the blank DVD either when it turned on to begin recording, or recognizing the DVD it just burned after the recording. Probably just an issue with my recorder.

Enter the PC. I bought a Windows Vista Home Premium a couple of months ago, primarily to use as an entertainment hub. Home Premium ships with Windows Media Center, which, when combined with an HDTV tuner (I also bought the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950), makes an outstanding DVR. The 950 is a small USB device that can record television in both standard definition and high definition. I have a $60 high definition antenna in my attic. A coax cable runs from my attic to a splitter, and then into the 950.

I currently receive about 13 high definition channels, and 12 standard definition channels over the air, directly from the antenna. No subscription fees, all the programming you could want.

High definition TV (HDTV) has many advantages over standard definition TV (SDTV). For one, HDTV is broadcast in either 7020p or 1080i resolution. Compare that to a movie DVD, which is 480p resolution. Let me state that another way: DVD is better quality than SDTV, and HDTV is better quality than DVD. On a computer monitor, the difference is night and day when you watch TV in SDTV and then switch to HDTV. Another advantage HDTV offers is more audio options, such as surround sound.

Another feature of HDTV is that stations can broadcast on sub channels. For example, my local PBS station, channel 7, broadcasts in SDTV only on channel 7. In HDTV, they broadcast on channels 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3. This allows them to broadcast separate programming on each sub channel, and gives the viewer more reasons to watch PBS.

When I'm not watching television on the PC, I can stream them to my Xbox 360. The 360 acts as a remote control for the PC, where I can watch recorded or live TV, all in standard or high definition, on a larger screen.

Windows Media Center has a number of useful features:

• Record a single episode of a show or the entire series
• Pause and rewind live TV
• Burn shows and movies to DVD
• Automatically delete old shows to make room for new shows
• A movies guide
• Information about the show, such as the date it was recorded, the name of the episode, the channel, a brief description, etc. Handy for when I view the list of files in Windows Explorer.
• Because it records to a file, I can copy the file to my laptop for later viewing
  

Conclusion:
I am happy with the options that Windows Media Center (WMC) provides. I record Saturday morning cartoons for the kids, CSI for myself, and Rachael Ray for my wife. WMC has settings which allow me to keep only the most recent episodes (no lost recordings because my hard drive is out of space). As the new fall TV season starts, we will be ready.