I'm looking to build a new system that hopefully can double as a DVR for my comcast hi-definition cable. It seems that the world of TV-tuners is a bit complex, and since I know nothing, I am afraid to proceed on my own without reading more first. I have a few questions that hopefully folks here can address:

• Are there any articles I should read that are both up to date and for novices in this area?
• It seems that if I want to record any of the channels I get, I need to go through the cable box first. Can I do this without losing signal quality? If so, how? Would that include On Demand content?
• If I am using my computer as a DVR, can I still use my TV without the computer as normal?
• How much disk space is recommended if everything else is working?
• How will my sound factor into a setup like this? I know the computer's speakers will be used with DVD playback. What about the rest? Can I swap between the TV's built-in sound and the computer's?

Thanks!

Avivo vs. Purevideo, Round 1: The Radeon X1000 vs. Geforce 7000 Generation
AVIVO HD vs. Purevideo HD: What You Need to Know about High-Definition Video
AVIVO HD vs. Purevideo HD Part 3: Midrange and Low-end Card Performance

These should get you well under way.

This depends on Comcast and your HDTV Tuner Card. Your tuner card will only go up to channel 125 (unless that's changed and I just don't know it), so to receive any channels above 125 (like most HD channels/PPV), you will need to run through the cable box (and use it for channel selection). I'm not sure what channel Comcast uses for On-Demand, but it's more than likely scrambled and would need the box to unscramble it anyway.

Signal quality is going to depend on a lot of factors like cable length/noise/quality, number of splitters in the line and where they're located in the chain, etc...

Shouldn't be a problem. Use different outputs from the cable box. HDMI to the TV and Composite to the PC, for example. The PC's TV Tuner Card should have a converter to accept input from various cable box outputs. Signal quality will depend on the type of converter used.

I would recommend getting as much as you can afford. In my experience in standard definition recording, 5 minutes of raw data can take up two to three hundred meg of disk space. For a two hour movie, that's 6 Gig of data. Once converted into final format (like DivX) it will take up less space. I don't seem to have any problems with my 500 Gig secondary media drive (OS and programs are on a separate drive).

That's going to depend on your cable box, but I would assume that different video outputs would have corresponding audio outputs.

-Wolf sends

My cable comes right into my one-room house and into the cable box with nothing in between. I'm not sure what I would use to connect a video card to the box though. The TV has a DVI-D connection that wouldn't be a problem, and I could probably use the shortest available cable to do it. The cable box appears to have a DVI connection (not D, can't tell you which offhand), but based on some limited conversation with tech support while dealing with other issues, I'm not sure it's used in quite the same way.

Thanks for the links. They were indeed useful for understanding DVD playback quite a bit better. I'd still like to learn more about tuners and what connections are used between these types of devices.

For what it's worth, http://www.maxentusa.com/_coreModu [...] asterID=15 shows the technical specs for my TV. No HDMI there, but I do have the component options and the DVI-D connection.

To achieve the results I want, would I be connecting the video card to both the cable box AND the TV, or just to the cable box, which would then connect to whatever sound I wanted to use? It appears the box has two rows of component connectors, and I get a feeling I can't take the sound inputs from one for use with the other. I could be wrong though.

Can anyone fill me in on my connection and sound questions? I'm also curious if you have any recommendations for tuner cards that would fit the bill. Thanks again.