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Satellite TV Trends - Watch Digital TV on Your PC

By: Steve Gee The reign of the conventional television receiver is coming to an end

For decades the world has been buying and watching standalone TV sets. They have faithfully entertained us and provided up to date information. Well as up to date as was possible in between the adverts. Things are now radically changing. The world you live in is very different from the world of past years, this is a world where digital communications, computers, digital TV, Satellite TV and the Internet are everywhere you look. The computer is now as common in your home as the TV set ever was and I know of many people that have more computers in their home than they have standalone television sets.

We use computers routinely for gathering information and research. Only a few short years ago this was the role of television news and current affairs channels. The TV channels haven't gone away but we rely on them a lot less than we used to. It's often so much easier to reach for the Internet browser on your PC especially when you need the information right now.

Do you need that TV set anymore?

The home computer revolution has crept up on us almost without notice and it might come as a big surprise to you to find that your computer is now capable of doing everything that your TV set can do and a lot more. It wasn't so long ago that to have the kind of processing power needed to decode and play full motion digital video from sources such as sattelite, cable and terrestrial broadcasts, not to mention DVD, would have been unthinkable. When you sit down and think about it you might want to consider buying a PC the next time you go shopping for a TV set.

The secret to using your TV to watch digital video

Not very long ago in the early days of PC TV it was necessary to install a TV capture card inside your computer in order to watch television broadcasts without using a standalone television. This was not a difficult task but it wasn't simple or elegant either. It also made it unsuitable for use with notebook PC's which limited the appeal somewhat. Notebooks were also less common and more expensive a few years ago so there was no incentive to develop such systems.

Along came cheap powerful notebook PC's and USB 2

You can now get good notebook PCs for prices comparable with television sets. They are equipped as standard with USB 2 interfaces which are fast enough to cope with a digital TV data stream from an external receiver. This means that modern desktop and notebook PCs are capable of transforming themselves into digital TV sets provided that you can find a source of digital TV data.

USB 2 and satellite television

The USB 2 standard PC interface is one of the best advances in computer technology for a long time. It's versatile and fast enough to cope with a variety of different applications including streamed real time digital video. Manufacturers of computer peripherals have jumped on this opportunity to bring you a mountain of products that enhance your computer by simply plugging them into the USB socket.

You will find that there are many USB 2, solutions for receiving, decoding, streaming and watching sattelite, cable and terrestrial TV by simply plugging it into your PC. DVB is the digital TV standard to look out for. It stands for " Digital Video Broadcasting" and there are 3 versions - DVB-C, DVB-S and DVB-T for cable, satellite and terrestrial use.

Digital TV USB adapters - disadvantages

Adding a USB digital TV adapter to your desktop or notebook computer can easily and cheaply turn your computer into a very nice high specification television with all the trimmings of digital storage and time shift viewing etc. If you want to receive encrypted pay for view channels then you will have to use a decoder box that is supplied specifically for the service you are subscribing to. You can of course feed the output of the external decoder box into your PC using a USB 2 analogue video adapter.

Digital PC TV is the future

Computers are here to stay and so is digital TV and video. Computers will only get more and more powerful as they get more and more affordable and digital TV is capable of far more than we have seen so far. The days of the conventional TV set are numbered.