apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I second the motion! I will be buying a laptop with a nice big screen. I don't know what I need to do in order to get the wireless TV thing done; but right now I have Time-Warner cable. Can anyone help with instructions?

The person who originally asked the question is way more computer savvy than I; so I'll need more of an explanation about how to get cable reception.

Thanks much. I hope I can get rid of the TV.

You came to the right place...

I have WMC OS as well... and a TV tuner... and did research on getting wireless TV connection, which IS possible and I believe the NYT Circuits section will have great info on that for you...

The thing with wireless TV is, aside from being fabulously expensive, that I think you have to have some primary standard TV setup... But technology may have advanced far beyond that since I did my research a year and a half ago. Go check out J&R... they have all the components you would need... But the fist thing you need is a lot of info.

By the way, Time Warner Cable in NYC will NOT hook up a cable TV box to a computer... their lawyers think there are liability issues, regardless of whether the technology has been available for well over a decade. There must not be enough demand for Time Warner to care.
They offer wireless broadband for computers, and cable TV for television sets, but a tuner card does not a television/CPU make, according to them.

If anyone has better info on Time Warner policies, I'd love to hear it. I won't do business with them until they agree to help me get cable reception for my computer, and so I continue to download the few shows I want to see... Anyway, it's fun to technically be without a television.

Good luck and please let us know if you do get the setup you dream of.

This is EXACTLY my question too, Amanda. I'm moving on June 1st and would like to use my Toshiba Qosmio laptop as my TV. I also am running Windows Media Center.

The only thing I've been able to dig out from the internet is that I need an S-Cable to run from a TV to my laptop to get it to work as a TV. That seems to defeat the purpose of it being used as a TV-replacement for either of us, let alone wireless. I'm stumped too, but all ears if anyone else has some thoughts.

By the way, my understanding is that sound quality is superior with WIRED speakers... While wireless speakers are a sexy idea... it does still have limitations. But let us know what you go with.

My sweetie loves Pandora as well... I just listen to WKEXP or WBGO online... EXCELLENT radio stations.

Are you all talking about replacing your TV with your computer?

I could never commit to not being able to access the internet or work on my laptop while watching TV...

How about the SlingBox? (Click the link in my name to go to their site.) That sounds like it might just be your kill-my-tv solution.

SlingBox not yet Mac compatible, I believe...

But my friend Mike (sitegeek) loves his.

Paul, I have TWCable and Earthlink internet connection-they are using TWCable hook-up; even my bill for internet use comes thru TWCable.


Can't say I'm a very happy customer-but they have monopoly on cable in my part of Brooklyn, so we in BAY Ridge don't have much choice.

RE: the wireless speakers, if you're feeling especially crafty, you could always roll your own Bluetooth speakers (again, with linkage in the name), though Froogle tells me commercial Bluetooth speaker options are also available.

The problem with receiving cable or satellite on your computer comes down to capturing the signal. Tuner cards can only act as an antenna. What you need to get a laptop receiving cable/sat is some sort of capture device like Slingbox (PC as Patrick said), or maybe El Gato for the Mac. All in all it's likely to be a pain in the butt, and cost a fair amount.

I don't think it's possible to get wireless TV - you still need an antena (most likely your cable hook up). Second vote for slingbox for wireless tv, but other than that I don't know what to tell you. As for wireless sound, I really want to get the apple airport express. This hooks up to a stereo and allows you to play the sound on your computer through the stereo wirelessly (via wifi)

I found a way to do this, but it's a bit different than what you asked for:
I replaced my TV with an LCD monitor that already has a TV tuner... (Eliminating the need for the computer to act as one.) This way, I can use it as a TV and as a monitor to my smallish laptop. Best of both worlds! A search for "LCD Monitor w/ TV Tuner" is linked under my name.

google sony location free tv

I've got a mac with a cable internet connection and I'm totally clueless on how to make it a tv, any info?

nevermind, found it


http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=shop_onlineshopus

The problem with using a laptop as a TV tuner is that you will still need to be tethered to the physical cable/satellite box in order to enjoy TV on your laptop.

My solution: I'm using a small-form-factor Shuttle computer (about the size of a toaster) fitted with a TV tuner card and Snapstream's BeyondTV software. Together this forms a TiVo-like recording center. They also have another product called BeyondTV Link that will let you watch your recordings (as well as live TV) from any other networked computer, even a laptop over a wireless network.

Personally I just copy the recordings over to my laptop or Sony PSP and enjoy my Mythbusters episodes while I'm at the coffeeshop, on the plane, etc.

Check out the link in my name - It looks like Slingbox is coming to Mac soon...

Thanks for all your ideas, keep them coming! Right now I am looking at Slingbox. As I will be somewhat transient over the next few months, I might be able to hook up the slingbox at my permanent address (at Dad's) and broadcast via the internet to my laptop, wherever I happen to be. Am I understanding Slingbox's capabilities? Seems too good to be true- oh wait, it's $250!.

I too bought an LCD TV/monitor, which is great, it even has picture-in-picture and split screen so I can do both at once.
I got Snapstream's BeyondTV software for free and it comes with NO instructions....so I'm thinking I need a tuner card for my pc for this to work but i'm not positive. Anybody know?

re: wireless speakers. I just broke up and the stereo belonged to my ex. I did have my old speakers which I loved and an Airport Express. So, I went to Radio Shack, and, of course, they had exactly what I didn't know I needed: an Accurian amp for about $125. I put the Airport Express and the amp in the closest where I also have my linksys/voip box, plugged an audio cable into the amp and the Airport, attached the stereo cable to the amp and the speakers which are hanging in my dining/living roon. The speakers sound great! Ain't wifi amazing? Don't have any suggestions about the tv part, though.

Oh, I forgot. My printer is also plugged into the airport express, which is wirelessly connected to the linkys, so from anywhere in my apartment or backyard I can surf the web, play music, or print out a document.

Amanda--
The Slingbox can indeed send a video feed over a home network as well as the Internet (Bonus: the Slingbox can remote control the TV, DVD, Tivo, etc). However, keep in mind that video requires a lot of bandwidth. From what I've read, streaming over the Internet works nicely, but don't expect full quality, full screen video. There may be dropped frames, video artifacts, pixelization, etc. Streaming video over an internal network (e.g. a wireless router) yields better quality, but I'm still not sure one would want it as their "main" tv.

I like the idea of a media center computer, but there's still plenty of rough edges to be smoothed out. I also haven't yet got over the idea of running a computer 24/7, sucking all that electricity.

Still, the dedicated computer approach has its advantages. If a computer is a dedicated media center, it can play, pause and record TV and do all your music, photos, weather, etc. Plus, it can serve the media to other computers on your network around the house. There are plenty of choices on the PC side of things, just a Google search away.

Ana--on the Mac, I've heard good things about the El Gato products. The new EyeTV 250 looks nice and very small. Also, a program called CyTV compliments the EyeTV boxes by serving the video to other computers on your network.

Cool, Michael in CO linked to me! AT is one of my favorite non-tech blogs (even if DC is second-tier to NYC here;), so I'm happy to get a shout-out. :)

FYI Slingbox for the Mac is on the way in the next few months. Until then, if you have an Intel Mac you can run it through Parallel's virtualization software. If you have an older Mac you can try Virtual PC.

While the Slingbox retails for $250, it's often selling for $199 at Best Buy or Amazon. But keep in mind it has an ethernet jack only, so you may need to spend some money on networking. I have a wireless bridge to beam the signal to my router and out to the Internet - it cost about $50.

I'm not sure if you'll be satisfied with the quality as your primary TV. Also depending how it's set up, it may change your dad's channels. There are some smaller USB TV tuners such as one I'll link to below - but you'll have to attach an antenna and cable to it. More clutter, but you'll probably be happier with the picture.

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_usb2.html

Channel Chooser

The only way to get TV on your laptop is with a TV tuner card. You can get a PCMCIA or USB one. This will have to connect to your digital cable box (via S-Video or Composite) or analog cable (via coax). To be able to watch TV wirelessly on your laptop, you'd have to get another computer that would be the dedicated tuner and stream it from that. I currently run mythtv, which runs on linux, where one server pc does all the tuning/recording and I have another computer at the tv which I watch recorded material from.

I've been wondering the same thing, is wireless cable possible? I have an Apple Powerbook G4 12" and I am very interested in buying an ELgato product, possibly the Eyetv Ez or the 250. I also was interested in the Airport express to make my speakers and my ethernet wireless, which made me think: would it be possible to use that USB port to make hook up the Tv Tuner.

I went the apple store to inquire, and an employee said it would not be possible (because there are only drivers for printers), but I still believe that it could be done. I haven't purchased either the Tv Tuner or the airport express so I don't know, but it would be fantastic and worth the pricey $129 for the Airport Express and the $149 for the Eyetv Ez.

Bob--
The setup you're describing wouldn't work, unfortunately. First of all, Airport Express only (officially) supports streaming music from iTunes. Also, like the Apple Store employee said, only printers can be plugged into the USB port.

The closest thing to what you're describing would require two computers. One would be plugged into the EyeTV, and would record, play and serve TV shows. Then you could use CyTV (http://www.lucid-cake.net/cytv/index_en.html) to stream video and audio over your network.

i have been scouring the internet for ours this evening looking for smothing that would use a wifi signal to network a tv signal to my laptop. i didn't want to waste all the processing of "over the internet brodcast" where as t is convenient to be able to watch tv in another state via the internet, i want to have a better picture... well after hours of scouring, here is what i have come up with.

http://www.snappymultimedia.com/products_hava.htm


it's called Hava, and it appears to be all things rolled into one wifi broadcast, internet broadcast, and wirelessly sends to the router too.

check it out, and see if it looks good to any of you.

C

wow, i need to spellcheck more often, i sound like a baffoon... oh well.

C

I am far from a techy...Can I buy wireless speakers that hook up to my laptop. What is entailed and how much $ am I looking at? I use my laptop in the bedroom (w/ speakers)as my sterio and need music in the living room.

Thanks!

I don't understand why you would use CYtv, if you already have the eyetv connected to your laptop, why would you not use the Eyetv 2 software??

I have had a TV tuner installed on my new Dell PC but I believe that I need a cable to connect it to my cable tv box, or possibly a cable splitter. If I try to do this I'm told that I may mess up the cable setup and will have to pay Time Warner to come out and setup everything again. Is this true? I want to avoid ANOTHER service call charge if possible. Any suggestions or words of wisdom?

117919

I use silicon dust's HD homerun (which is a network attached High Definition Receiver for computers). This device with eyetv and cytv and some router configuring would allow you to watch clear HD over your Network wired or wirelessly with a N router, while being free of having a cable line hooked up to your computer and would also allow you to send tv over the internet to anywhere you have an internet connection. This set up works on a Mac, PC or Linux. I use this set up to watch tv anywhere in the world I am. It works fantastic.

I will be writing a blog post all about my set up and how to achieve what I'm doing soon. I'll post back here with the the link when I'm done.