<p>I'm a technologically limited mom of non-techy kid here... I'd like to know how best to obtain cable TV on son's laptop, as space in dorm room is limited. His computer uses Vista and the dorm room has cable. Oh and his roommate is bringing his own TV, so we'll need to split the cable signal too. </p>
<p>Please go gently in computer-ese in your response, and thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>Either the room will have two plugs in the wall with cable access, or you can get a coaxial splitter for pretty cheap (less than $10). Before you get a splitter, make sure that it will allow each TV to get a separate feed (so both people can watch different channels at the same time).</p>
<p>As for getting a cable signal on to a laptop, you need a TV tuner card. Normally these are internal and installed inside of a desktop as a PCI card, but since your son is using a laptop, you'll want to buy an external one that just plugs into a USB port.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newegg.com%5B/url%5D">www.newegg.com</a> is one of the more well-known places to buy these kinds of things online. I haven't done any kind of research as to the quality of these examples (you should do this on your own by reading the user reviews and looking stuff up on google), but these at least have pictures of what an internal TV tuner card would look like and what a USB one looks like.</p>
<p>Internal (PCI): Essentially long metal bar with the holes for cables, attached to a big circuit board
<a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100130%5B/url%5D">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100130</a></p>
<p>External (USB): Looks like a portable flash drive, except with a coaxial (cable tv) plug on the end.
<a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815260002%5B/url%5D">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815260002</a></p>
<p>Unless your son plans on getting HDTV in the future (since I'm assuming dorm cable won't have HDTV), you can probably save some money by getting a card that only handles normal tv signals as opposed to being HD capable.</p>
<p>Also, look at the specifications to make sure that whatever you're getting supports Windows Vista (and see if anybody mentions it not working well with Windows Vista).</p>
<p>Thanks!! I'll check those sites out. :)</p>
<p>dorm connection doesn't have hd, but you could pick up hd signals with the attena provided with this device
OnAir GT Mobile HDTV Receiver & DVR for PC - HDTV-GT
<a href="http://www.buy.com/prod/onair-gt-mobile-hdtv-receiver-dvr-for-pc/q/loc/101/202493924.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.buy.com/prod/onair-gt-mobile-hdtv-receiver-dvr-for-pc/q/loc/101/202493924.html</a></p>
<p>sorry to jump in on this thread, but does anyone know of a way to get cable on a mac (laptop)? i was planning on buying a tv, but it seems like getting the tv tuner for my macbook would be a lot cheaper.</p>
<p>Check that out, great product, with quality video playback. Has support for both regular and hdtv.</p>
<p>This happauge is probably your best bet and was rated highly by hardocp.com (a computer enthusiast site)
It is capable of both SDTV as well as HDTV and comes with an antennae in the box. Pretty slick</p>
<p><a href="http://www.directron.com/wintvhvr950.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.directron.com/wintvhvr950.html</a></p>
<p>none of them have QAM support...best tv tuner is still
OnAir GT Mobile HDTV Receiver & DVR for PC - HDTV-GT</p>
<p>If your son or daughter is getting digital cable, splitters won't work as digital require a cable box to interpret the signal. Digital also requires different cables. (Some areas offer only digital cable--so check before you make any fast plans.)</p>
<p>I don't see many dorms going through the effort of upgrading their cable service to digital.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>PCI is not laptop compatible. miniPCI components are laptop compatible but if you haven’t heard of miniPCI it won’t be worth the trouble to see if you have a free slot - even if you did you’d have problems routing an antenna and ports.</p></li>
<li><p>this guy doesn’t feel that dorms will upgrade to digital - he seems unaware that many broadcasts BY LAW will have to be digital by 2009 and that existing coax cable can handle digital transmission (my school offers limited HDTV programming on the existing cable for example)</p></li>
<li><p>kworld tuners are, for all intents and purposes, trash judging from reviews I have read</p></li>
</ol>
<p>bottom line? You want the Hauppage HVR-950. Get it here or at a similar vendor - <a href=“http://www.compuplus.com/i-Hauppauge-1139-WinTV-HVR-950-TV-Stick-1008463~.html?sid=214gn3q1g0vvy5r[/url]”>http://www.compuplus.com/i-Hauppauge-1139-WinTV-HVR-950-TV-Stick-1008463~.html?sid=214gn3q1g0vvy5r</a></p>
<p>The Onair GT is a higher end tuner that has the ability to watch HDTV via cable (this capability is called QAM tuning) - the Hauppage that I linked to will tune into HDTV stations that are broadcase over the air. Both will tune into standard cable broadcasts. It is up to you to decide if it is worth the extra cost to pay for QAM capability or not.</p>
<p>If you do not need any hdtv capability then you can get a standard TV tuner for less money - here is one I found on clearance: <a href=“http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA51000&RSKU=AA51000[/url]”>http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA51000&RSKU=AA51000</a></p>
<p>Try to find a a TV tuner card that would be compatible with a laptop. There are many available for desktops, but there might be a way to convert one so it can be used on a laptop.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter where your cable modem is, or if you have internet. All you need is the cable TV. As long as there is a TV signal coming through it, you can just screw it into your laptop and you should get that signal. That’s it! If you want a PVR/TIVO type of thing, look up MythTV or BeyondTV. There are others out there, but I can’t remember them at the moment!</p>
<p>If you really want cable, I would look into a PCMCIA cable card, this would assure no quality is lost, it is FCC regulated, if you ask your cable provider for a cable card they must provide one, they are PC cards that receive the signal wirelessly, meaning you would not be restricted to your dorm, you can watch tv anywhere. Many new TV sets are cable card 2 ready, the cable card 2 also gives you multi tuners, meaning you can be recording to your hard drive and watch another channel simultaneously. I would recommend you look into this, as the card leases are very cheap and work nationwide.</p>
<p>Not sure if anyone knows anythin about this, but some websites/services I’ve seen offer satellite TV channels oh your computer through your internet connection. You have to pay a fee of course, but I do not know much more about it. </p>
<p>Our dorm has digital cable. In fact, we have HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and everything. I think we pay more for the option in our tuition though.</p>