Anyone in UK use ATI TV Wonder VE with ntl?

[Miles]

I am considering buying an ATI TV Wonder VE card.

Apparantly, even though I subscribe to ntl digital cable TV, I am also receiving an analogue signal that this card should be able to decode.

Can anyone confirm this? Anything else I should know, like what channels are available, what the quality is like, etc.?

[Craig Tucker]

The card will also be able to capture from the digital channel, as the decoder box that NTL supply converts the digital signal to analogue so that your TV can accept it. And yes with NTL you get 5 analogue and 1 digital channels. The quality of the analogue channels are average, to get the best quality captures capture from the digital channel.

[Miles]

Thanks for the reply, but I'm still not 100% sure about this!
I know that I could hook up a composite video output from the SCART on the set top box to the RCA socket on the card, and capture whatever channel the STB is set to. But, what I really want to do is put a splitter before my cable modem, so that ntl's cable is connected to both the modem and the CATV input of the card. I can't see how you could get a digital channel this way, but I've heard that there are some extra channels above the usual 5 on "VHF e band" whatever that is.

[Craig Tucker]

The Digital signal has to go throught the settop box first to convert and decode the signal. You have to connect to a capture card after the settop box not before. I don't know anything about extra channels apart from the 5 analogue and 1 digital.

[Miles]

Just thought I'd post an update on this topic for the archive.

I now have one of these cards (for £16 it seems good value, and all I wanted was something cheap to learn tv/video capture basics).

The signal does not have to go through the set-top box. There was a splitter on the cable, one output went to the stb and the other to my cable modem. I bought another splitter, and put it by my pc before the modem. From the second splitter, one output now goes to the cable modem and the other to the catv input of the capture card.

I can tune in to the 5 main channels, also the BBC and Sky news channels, VH1 (which I don't think you get on the set top box) and a couple of others. Quality is variable.

[Craig Tucker]

To be able to capture the digital encrypted channels, the signal has to go through the set top box. And I get VH1 on my STB.

[AlanC]

Miles

Where did you get that TV-Card for £16?

Alan
[www.tv-cards.com]

[Miles]

Alan:- eBay.