Watching TV on the computer, cable question.

[Moose on the Loose]

Hi again.

I have a Pinnacle PCTV Stereo card in my computer. I would like to watch cable tv on my computer. So I have the cable outlet on the wall, on the other side of my room. It would take me about 8 meters of cable to connect the outlet to my PC.

So I went to a TV store nearby, and said I needed about 8meters of cable. Now he gave me the option : either buy 8m of (famous brand, I think it was Monster) cable, which is supposedly the best, but costs €70 for 8 meters. There is also some generic cable, that costs €7 for 10 meters. He said 8 meters is a pretty long distance to use cable, and I'll probably lose quality if I use the cheap cable. Now my question is, will I really notice the difference between these cables ?

There is also a third option I kind of figured out myself. They also sell cable signal amplifiers. I saw an 3x amplifier for 30 bucks. If I combine this with the 10 meters of cheap cable, would that be a good solution ?

Thanks to anyone who'll help me out making the right decision.

Moose

[bailey]

I don't know about there, but here there is no problem with 8 meters of cable for the connection, and you should not need any kind of amplifier at all.
there is very littel differance if cheap cable and the expensive ones except for maybe the shielding, eather one should work fine and you would not be able to see any differance in eather one.
don't fall for any good sales ptich.
get the cheaper cable and try it, if it works good, your done.
make sure to have the ends crimped on for you, unless you have a crimper and know how to do it your self.

I belive we are talking about 75 ohm coax cable too, right ?

[RJ]

I once used a cheap 7m cable for cable TV, and I haven't seen a difference in quality. The $70 aren't worth it. And analog cable isn't that high quality anyways, at least not here.

RJ

[Moose on the Loose]

Thanks, looks like you guys just saved me 60 bucks.

@Bailey : I don't know how much Ohm it is. It's just a regular coax cable I think. The Monster cable had a very small amount of gold at the ends or something.

Anyhow, I'll just buy the 10 meters of cheap cable, and if I have a weak signal I can buy the signal amplifier later on should I feel the need to do so.

Thanks

Moose

[greyowl]

I say give her on the cheaper cable. I use 20 m or so and it works superbly. I had the same pitch thrown at me. Save yourself the bucks.

[bailey]

tv usally uses 75 ohm coax
radios use 50 ohm coax

[Moose on the Loose]

Hm, well I'll just buy the cheap cable. Is there anything I can do about this "shielding" later on? I'll do a google search on what it is exactly.

[bailey]

I don't think you will have any problems with the shielding at all.
at least I never have in the past 50 years

[Moose on the Loose]

Fine, I'll go to the store later on. I forgot my pinaccle CD at home, I don't suppose there is a way I can watch TV without that CD? I tried the Pinnacle site, but the download there only gives you an upgrade, I think. IE what would be good, free TV tuner software ? Will it even work with a Pinnacle card?

EDIT : found and downloaded DScaler. I'll go buy a cable this afternoon.

[bailey]

if I understand you correctly, you have not installed it yet, and yes you will need the cd to do that.

[Moose on the Loose]

I put the Tv-card in, and windows detects it correctly. Now I just need a program to actually watch TV with, I guess ? DScaler seems to work with my card, but I can't say for sure since I need the cable first

[RJ]

DScaler is very nice. It can also deinterlace the signal while viewing. I currently use DScaler with my DC10plus, to watch DVB-T (I don't have a DVB-T card in my PC yet), works very nice.

RJ

[Moose on the Loose]

OKay I got the cable. I can watc TV, but I think I forgot a cable at home. I'm probably supposed to connect the TV tuner card with my soundcard ? Because I'm not getting any sound

The signal is "ok", I guess. I might buy the amplifier, getting some snowy effects on most channels. I'd like it to be better image quality.

[ktkendall]

Those Monster cables are not necessary, I had a salesman sell me them and I did not even question price, untill I got to the register I almost dropped over.. I did not end up buying them. I think they get a nice commision off of them, yes they are high end quality but for us regular people that have to spend wisely it isn't worth the 10x price difference. The funniest part is how they try to scam you though and tell you the 8 meters is too far, when in reality there is no distance within your home that can make a difference in signal strength or quality because compared to the however many miles you are from the cable companies office where the signal and cable originate from, whatever distance you add inside your house is neglegable. The problem can occur inside your home from adding splitters and splices though..

[Moose on the Loose]

I think they place signal amplifiers every x meters. Those plastic boxes alongside the streets, that have the name of the cable company here, are signal amplifiers I'm told.

[ktkendall]

Yes they probably are but 'll bet it's several miles apart and to tell someone that they need an amplifier or a rediculously overpriced cable just to go 8 meters inside the home is just plain wrong, and that is a sleasy greasy salesmen trying to take advantage of what he perceived to be an unknowledgable gullible customer..

[hunter11]

The amps on the cable line are approx 1 mile apart. The box you see with the name of the cable co are usually splitters/attenuators, to drop the signal going into your home. The wire from the street and run through your house is usually RG-6 which is 75 ohms. The real cheap cable is RG-59 also 75 ohms. I have run the cheap stuff 25ft or so with little or no difference in signal. As far as no sound, on my tv card there is no additional cable or wire to hook up. I did not have audio on all my channels but I corrected that by fine tunning. Good luck.

[Moose on the Loose]

Originally Posted by ktkendall The problem can occur inside your home from adding splitters and splices though..

Well, I'll try to describe the circumstances I live in. I'm a college student, and I live in a student home. It's a regular house in the city, but it's modified to rent out to students. There are 7 rooms with a desk, a bed and a wardrobe. The kitchen is shared amongst the 7 people. We all have a cable outlet, (cable is free in Belgium) so I imagine the cable coming in the house is split up in 7. The signal I'm getting is still very strong though, I'm not sure if I'm going to buy the amplifier or not.

I still don't seem to get any sound though. Aren't I supposed to connect a cable from the TV tuner card to the soundcard ?

EDIT : I don't get this at all : In the "Sources" menu you have

a) Pinnacle PCTV Stereo (which is my TV tuner)
b) Pinnacle PCTV Stereo BDA Analog Capture (Dshow)

A gives me good image, but no sound
B gives me skip and less image quality, but it does give me sound.

[bailey]

as far as I know, the tv cards do not have a sound card built into them and you do need to use the connector for the sound out of the tv card to the input of the sound card for the computer,
I suppose the fact that your getting some sound is it may be digital and feeding through the system, but most tv sound is analog and must go to the sound card.

like with dvd rom drives, they will play the sound digitaly, but for the analog you need to connect the audio cable to the sound card cd input,

I use the audio cable with my all in wonder tv card.

[Moose on the Loose]

Guess I'll just have to wait until I'm home again, and try to dig up that cable

Thanks for all the help, everyone.