Thread: Set Top Box - Waste of Money

I was planning to put the TV arial back up one day and test a set to box. The arial on its own with a booster is just not watchable but I do get canberra and wagga at the same poor level.

I live in a 'marginal' TV reception area - that means most of the channels are poor quality and SBS is non-existant. Only the ABC is good quality but it is subject to interference. The set top box was great - for some reason it won't pick up the ABC but the commercials look crystal clear. I always thought all the movies on channel 7 were filmed at midnight, underwater, but it's not true!

Originally Posted by VladTepes

So whats the go with building a PC based media centre to match with the TV (rather than simply buying a DVD recorder for example)?

Surely by it's nature such a computer would need to spend most if not ALL of its time turned ON so that it can record programs, allow you to watch the TV etc. This raises questions of:

Cooling
Fan Noise
Power Consumption
Fire Hazard (is it more of a fire risk than a video etc)?

OK let's hear it then.....

All the other components have fan noise and power consumption anyway. What would use more power and be more of a fire risk 5 components or 1 P.C tower?
If you go this way you would have a decent sound system to back it up anyway wouldn't you

so in reality you have a T.V(monitor), amplifier and media centre with 1 remote thats it

Originally Posted by VladTepes

So whats the go with building a PC based media centre to match with the TV (rather than simply buying a DVD recorder for example)?

Surely by it's nature such a computer would need to spend most if not ALL of its time turned ON so that it can record programs, allow you to watch the TV etc. This raises questions of:

Cooling
Fan Noise
Power Consumption
Fire Hazard (is it more of a fire risk than a video etc)?

OK let's hear it then.....

you wont need a space shuttle() PC for a media centre,
these things are catered for by most hardware designers and QUITE is the go--, a PSU fan, cpu fan, thats about it,, the rest are all done by heatsinks,,

some very nice ones around.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

QUITE is the go--

QUIET even.

So what's the go with set top boxes ?

I currently have my video set up so I can tape something while watching something else. I know this is because the VCR and the TV each have a tuner. An analogue one.

How would I instal a STB so this was still possible. Will one box get me all channels in digital simultaneously ? Fill me in people - I'm slow on the uptake with the whole STB thing.

Originally Posted by VladTepes

So what's the go with set top boxes ?

I currently have my video set up so I can tape something while watching something else. I know this is because the VCR and the TV each have a tuner. An analogue one.

How would I instal a STB so this was still possible. Will one box get me all channels in digital simultaneously ? Fill me in people - I'm slow on the uptake with the whole STB thing.

A STB is just a digital television receiver. These are good because they receive in widescreen, and usually generate a higher quality picture.

There are also things called Personal Video recorders. These are STB's coupled with a hard disk for recording. They will revolutionise your tv watching.

There are also "Media Centre PC" which are pcs set up to be PVR. They ususally add features like multiple tuners, and internet surfing.

Once you get over the wedding (and before things get bad LOL - JOKE) you should come over.

Originally Posted by VladTepes

So what's the go with set top boxes ?

I currently have my video set up so I can tape something while watching something else. I know this is because the VCR and the TV each have a tuner. An analogue one.

How would I instal a STB so this was still possible. Will one box get me all channels in digital simultaneously ? Fill me in people - I'm slow on the uptake with the whole STB thing.

Vlad with any STB you should still be able to use all your old gear with it. For example it will have a standard composite video output and you can feed that into your existing TV or your VCR. ( bypassing their internal analogue tuners). This will give you a higher quality picture on the TV, or recording on the VCR. So you could for example watch TV using its analogue tuner while recording another channel on on the VCR using the STB. If you wanted to record AND watch in digital at the same time though you would need 2 STBs.

That is why the PVR's are great. They normally have two digital tuners built in so you can watch one channel while recording another one on to the Hard disk. We never use the VCR now for recording only the PVR. No more labelling tapes and trying to find a half hour program somewhere on a four hour tape ! Yahoo