Best TV-on-PC device?

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Lately, I've wondered how I can watch the NFL live as it happens on my PC, as my computer is right by the living room, making for an awkward arrangement.

So I ask now, what is the best TV-on-PC device out there?

I have a Spectare USB TV tuner. I used it with Windows 7 but not with my current OS, Windows 8. because I lack the proper drivers.

I have an Asus U3000 USB HDTV adapter plugged into my desktop PC, with a coax aerial plugged into it.

http://www.asus.com.au/Multimedia/TV_Tuner/My_CinemaU3000Mini/

That cost me AU$35 brand new - cheapest HDTV I'll ever get!

I actually use it in Linux although I have tested it successfully in Windows 7 too.

From 2004-2008, I owned a number of aerial HD tuners including the ATI device that was top of the line around 08. None of them were ever in the same ballpark, or the same SPORT, as the ability of my Sony Bravia flat panel to receive aerial HD signals. It was so ridiculous that I never kept any of the PC tuners (well I still have that ATI one if anyone wants to buy it). I gave up and just used the TV to watch TV. It's a shame that this is still an issue in 2012, all channels should offer Internet streaming in 1080p. There are only one or two shows I watch anyway and the rest of my TV watching consists of streaming or downloading movies.

I understand DirecTV2PC is an option for those with DirecTV. You have to have a DVR.

A) the vast majority of broadcasters broadcast in 720p

B) the majority of Internet users can't support a real-time 1080p stream, let alone multiple concurrent streams.

C) the only way of accomplishing Internet-based TV streaming would require cooperation with ISPs to allow multicast traffic on their networks (which means those ISPs would have to make sure their entire network supports multicast traffic, which would cost millions), and those ISPs would start charging for it similarly to cable companies - so it's not really worth it anyway.

My hauppage USB TV Tuner w/ CableCARD slot gets me everything my cable box does - into my PC. I fail to see how this isn't "in the same ballpark" - it's the exact same signal.

I was talking aerial. At the time tuners with CableCard slots weren't available as far as I know. I suppose if you have cable, that solves that issue.

"Millions" to resolve the multicast issue doesn't impress me much - billions might be too much. At least in NYC many/most subscribers have enough bandwidth to run at least 10 simultaneous 1080p streams. I realize that isn't the case everywhere but you have to start somewhere. I believe most Americans have at least 10mbps down, which should have no issues running a single 1080p stream. This is clearly the future, so whatever happens in the interim is screwing off.

Actually I don't really want to carry my laptop around the house tethered to a coaxial cable, now that I think about it. DirecTV2PC is the closest thing to a solution.

There's enough bandwidth for a single person to run those streams, yes. But bandwidth isn't dedicated - it's pooled. There is *not* anywhere near enough bandwidth for an entire apartment building to run 2 streams each. Multicast helps the problem, but it doesn't eliminate it, not by a long shot. And deploying that infrastructure along would cost hundreds of millions, on top of all the fiber that would have to be run. Verizon had to completely build an entire FTTH infrastructure for them to make it work - and then the content providers blocked them from making it available without a STB.

Luckily - you don't have to have your TV tuner card hooked up to your laptop with a coax cable running out of it. You can do the exact same thing everyone else is doing - use the local user's wifi network, and hook into the router.

CableCARD has been around forever - and cablecard capable TV tuners have been around since 2009, when the FCC and congress ruled against the broadcast flag and mandated that cable providers must provide access to people who wish to buy/bring their own boxes. Before that ruling, I enjoyed both HD OTA channels (which are required to be broadcast in the clear by the cable companies, and always have), and SD basic cable with NTSC. Now I enjoy whatever I want to, minus video-on-demand.

I vaguely remember cable being pooled bandwidth, you're right that's a problem. But considering that the existing coaxial is able to transmit the signal anyway, this seems like a protocol issue. There must be a way for all that bandwidth to be formatted as TCP instead of part TCP and part QAM or whatever they use. Regardless, I don't see why multi-gigabit downstream rates would be hard in an area like NYC. That should be enough for a 100 unit building to all stream different channels at 1080p at the same time, which is an unlikely scenario.

I understand I could hook it up to the router, but I have roughly zero time to screw around installing and configuring hardware, which is why I am not a Linux user. And it will still not cover me watching streaming TV when I am in the park, or on the train, on an iPad, which are scenarios which as a cable subscriber in 2012 I would *expect* to be able to do.

NYC is exactly the worst place to do that. Running fiber in a dense urban area is *extremely* difficult. There is not enough backbone bandwidth to make anything work. Existing coax has the physical bandwidth to transmit streams - that's not the issue. IP has overhead - it needs to be switched and routed to an address - and that complexity adds an extreme amount of cost. Multicast streaming TV can be done - Verizon is doing it right now - but it's not going to ever work the way you want it to.

There will *never* be enough bandwidth wirelessly to stream HD video from "the cloud". It isn't mathematically possible. Either someone needs to develop a new compression codec that takes it down to 1/4 the size it is now, or we need to figure out a way to transmit signals higher than 10ghz - anything short of that isn't going to happen.

NYC seems like a great place to do it, you can hit thousands of customers on every single city block. In a couple dozen square miles, you can hit a million. This type of project becomes rapidly cost effective. Running fiber in NYC can't be that hard, Verizon had no problem installing FIOS. I'm sure they use existing tunnels to run fiber. But that seems irrelevant since as I mentioned coax has the bandwidth. Yes IP has overhead but they should address this either by changing IP to reduce the overhead for this type of stream (perhaps IPv6 does this?) or else perhaps the (what, 10%?) overhead isn't a problem anyway. It should all fall under "data" and my "data" connection, i.e. my Internet connection, should be able to access it without inconveniencing me.

Streaming HD wirelessly should not be a problem - just charge for the bandwidth.

NYC is probably the worst city in the world to do this kind of thing. There's so much infrastructure that's underground that's been there for 100+ years, it's hard to get fiber from point A to point B without digging up roads. Most of the original infrastructure underground is owned by municipal governments, which means getting access to those areas to do work requires all sorts of hoops to be jumped through. On top of that, NYC is notoriously union-driven, which drives the cost up for the whole project. The other problem is roughly 60% of NYC's infrastructure went to 7 World Trade - which was destroyed on 9/11. The telco's have been playing catchup ever since. FiOS wasn't deployed in NYC until nearly a year and a half after it was deployed in other major markets. In the DC area - the surrounding suburbs got FiOS 6 months before DC proper did.



I'm not talking about the protocol overhead - I'm talking about the overhead of having to have switches and routers. Existing cable systems are a broadcast system - the headend punts out a signal, and from there on it's all passive. It's relatively easy to operate that kind of system because you only have two things that can go wrong - either the headend can die, or a signal splitter can break. There are no electronics inbetween the cable headend and the end user's TV. Adding switches and routers adds a whole new dimension of cost and design - the architecture fundamentally changes because of that. You have to insure that a) you have enough bandwidth to push your stream, and b) you have to insure that your network equipment can handle the additional packet switching requirements necessary - *on top* of regular Internet traffic.

Packet switched networks are not designed for stability - IP was designed under the assumption that packets arriving out of order wouldn't be a big deal, because the receiving end would be able to re-order them in time to provide a useful service. With real-time streaming, that isn't the case. You have to insure that every packet arrives in order, and that they arrive at about the same time. Networking gear, up until very recently, couldn't do that at a GigE or 10GE rate. There's a lot that goes into designing a network that doesn't have jitter or intermittent packet loss problems, both time, engineering prowess, and money. All of that makes live streaming video less attractive - and the current model of VOD much more attractive.



No - there's physically not enough spectrum to make this possible. Not even if you got rid of the telephony spectrum entirely and switched everything to data. Not even if you consolidated *all* of the carriers' spectrum into one block, and dedicated the entire thing to data.

The benefits of multicast completely go away when you start talking about wireless links. In that scenario - the contested link is the wireless link connecting the device to the immediate gateway. Even with a multicast setup, each device needs it's own stream on the local link - so you run out of spectrum extremely quickly when more than a handful of people are streaming.

The other problem is jitter - the cell network is designed to seamlessly switch towers as you move around. When that happens, there's usually a huge spike in latency (go ahead and run a continuous ping from your air card, the latency jumps around dramatically). That is death for a streaming service.

Since what I care about is having the data *served* in a way that is accessible to my router in the same way as other IP data, it seems like they should be able to spoof the IP protocol into what is actually a constant stream of data without investing in hardware such as switches or routers. It's just a protocol. Or at worst, put the 'server' inside the home router to start pushing the QAM stream from some local IP address on request. I'm not a networking guru, but all I care about is for data to be data as far as my computer is concerned.

If it's not physically possible to serve streams wirelessly, you're not charging enough for the bandwidth. Increase the cost until the number of users falls to a level that makes it possible.

So - in other words - you want a device that will take in the QAM from the cable company, and output an IP stream to your LAN - which is exactly what I was talking about.

http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHR3 ... B004HKIB6E

Yes, without the device, I think it should be a standard cable router feature, and I still don't like it as much as I'd like to be able to stream wherever I am, assuming the bandwidth exists (wi-fi etc.). Lack of bandwidth = increase cost of it.

Why would I, as a cell network, offer a streaming TV service that only a tiny minority of my customers would pay for - when I can offer a VOD solution that I can offer everyone?