capturing cable channels

[pglenn]

I would like to capture cable channels on my computer, however my video card/tv tuner will not de-scramble/recognise all of the available channels. The card will recognise all of the "basic" channels however for the movie channels (HBO, ShowTime, etc) it does not recognise/descramble them, and there are several channels avalaible with the "advanced/non-basic" cable package (ie Sci-Fi, ESPN2, History, etc) that my tv tuner also will not recognise/descramble.

I am able to get those channels, if I hook up my video card to a coax output from the output of my cable box, meaning I can only view and record on the PC what the cable box and TV is set to, but of course I would like the PC to be independant of the TV.

Is there any option available, either hardware or software, that would allow the PC to be hooked up direct to the cable, no cable box involved before the PC, and allow the tv tuner/video card to be able to receive and capture the "advanced" channels? I would assume there would be a software solution to emulate the cable box.

I am using the ATI AIW-7500 video card, win-wp, and I am not using digital cable.

Patrick

[Nelson37]

SFAIK, there is no software to do this. You can buy a second cable box and splitter.

What I do is split the cable before the box, run one to tv coax-in and second to cable box. Composite out from box to TV (my TV has no S-Video input), S-video out from box to ATI card. Sound out from box thru two Y-Cables sent to stereo and ATI card.

This way I can watch and record the same channel with TV set to Video, or record any channel on the ATI while watching a different non-premium
channel on TV set to Coax.

This also yields a better quality picture on the ATI. This became MUCH more noticeable after switching to digital cable. Although the extra benefit of S-video over Coax is clearest on true digital channels, it is also evident on non-digital stations.

[pglenn]

yeah, well that is essentially what I am doing now. I have a split before my box, one goes to box and one to TV in. then the box output goes to my stereo for processing, thru my VCR and audio amp, and the output there goes to TV and to PC.

My main problem is that I cannot use "scheduled recording" with my PC because obviously the signal is controlled by the cable box which is not programmable. I can only "schedule" recordings from a single channel and only if the cable box is on that channel. The other nuisance is that since the cable box feed is on channel 3, I am really only able to view/record on channel 3 from the PC which means I continually have to "switch" the setting for channel 3 within my TV GUIDE PLUS program when I use that for scheduling.

I am able to feed the cable direct to my PC so that I can "schedule" recordings from different channels but then I lose the ability to watch and record the "premium" channels on the PC, which in my area includes what I consider non-premium channels such as espn2, speedtv, history, sci-fi, and a few others.

Just hoping there may be a solution for PC "descambling", even if just the non-pay-per-view movie channels I am missing (espn2, sci-fi, etc).

Patrick

[mcorpse]

At one time I had some program that claimed to be able to do what you speak of, but I didn't have my TV tuner card at the time, so it ended up getting deleted. I guess you could probably dick around on Google for a bit and see what you come up with. I don't even know if the program worked in the first place.

[mrtristan]

I searched for months and couldn't find a software descrambling program. I wanted to do the same thing, but I eventually just gave up.

[mcorpse]

I don't know how well they work, but there's a couple on www.punk4hire.com