How to Stream Cable to Laptop

[utalice]

Hello. I've been trying to figure out the cheapest (yet, w/out loss of quality) way, without using Slingbox, to stream my cable tv service to my laptop.

I have a Samsung NP-580-JSB1US laptop, which does have HD quality and standard cable tv from Time Warner with no set-top box.

I called them about a tv card (they use tru2way), but they said they don't use them for laptops.
My laptop takes an ExpressCard/34, not the PCMCIA type.

Someone mentioned HDHomerun...has anyone used this? What is your opinion?

Thanks for the help.

[redwudz]

I've been using a HDHomerun tuner for a couple of years. It is digital TV only with two tuners onboard. No analog tuners. You can hook your HD digital cable to one tuner and your OTA HDTV antenna to the second. It's a great device for sending HDTV over your LAN system to any connected PC. Frequent updates and easy to use. It also works natively with Windows Media Center.

But if you are thinking of a wireless LAN connection, their speed is marginal for HDTV. It works OK with the newer 'N' wireless adapters, but a 'G' adapter may be too slow. Maybe 'Super G' would also work. With a wired LAN connection, no problem, even with a 100Mb/s connection.

And welcome to our forums.