Can Nvidia Tuner box be modded to work w/o card?

[perceptionist]

Years ago I bought the Nvidia personal cinema which included a transparent green tuner box which was connected to the PCI card via a propriotary control bus cable. I assume this cable is what supplies the tuner box with it's power. Does anyone know the pinout for this bus cable? I imagine there must be a way to mod this to function w/o the card. I would like to also mod the cable to have one end spliced with a male USB so it can interface that way...

Is this possible or am I way off on this idea?

Looking for anyone who may have explored this...

Here are a couple pics of the tuner box in question:

http://www.astradistribution.com/images/box.jpg

http://www.www.xbitlabs.com/images/v...a/tv-tuner.jpg

Thanks for any ideas...

oh BTW, the reason I am looking into this, I no longer have my tower PC. I would like to see if this box can be used with my laptop (via USB) since it's sitting around before I plunk down the $$ on a new tuner box.

[redwudz]

In the first JPEG, I only see video and audio output cables from the computer. No type of power cable. And I would doubt that a USB connection would supply enough power, especially from a laptop. USB is 5VDC, limited to 500ma. (1/2 Amp) The box may also run on 12VDC, also available in a computer. You would be better off to use a 'wall wart' DC power supply, but you would have to know the correct voltage and amperage the device needs.

Then you would also need the software to control the tuner. All in all, this project could be very difficult without the proper cabling and software.
One other problem if you plan to tune over-the-air TV broadcasts are that most all of them are digital now and I don't think that tuner will work with digital inputs. Lots of cable suppliers still use analog video, though.

Something like this may be a better way to go: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-023-_-Product