laptop tv?

I'm not sure what kind of TV signals there are, but I tried a USB device that you attach an antenna to on my laptop. It was completely useless. I had no luck with TV on my laptop. I thought about getting a satellite system going, but worrying about the satellite plus the cost of the service isn't worth it to me.

Even my trainer 2 years ago had an actual TV, and hardly ever got any stations. The rare station we did get paused every few seconds and it was full of staticy grey boxes.

 

Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_tuner_card

 

Or you can use something like this:

http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/atsc/

 

TV tuner USB dongle was what I tried, similar to what skellr posted. Even with the antenna at the windshield, it hardly picked up anything. I tried two different brands. Maybe someone else got it working though.

 

it's called a usb tv tuner. and it does work. but since the invention of digital signal. it works like crap.

it can be done. but it's a rarity. the biggest problem is trying to get your antannae up higher then the trucks that roll by and screw up your signal.

digital signals are straight signals. where as the old analog signal was an up and down wave and bounced around everywhere. not hard to pick up an analog signal. but you need a direct path without obstructions for digital to really work.

like i posted in another thread. it would be kewl if someone invented a usb satellite tuner that we could plug into our laptops.

yes i have a usb tv tuner. i get my best reception by putting the antannae next to the cb antannae. outside the window.

they can be bought anywhere. bestbuy, radioshack, etc.

there are amplifier tuners one can buy. i have no idea if they work better though since i don't actually own one.

 

Ummm, no. The main problem is that the "tuner on a chip" that those USB tuner sticks use really is crap. They were designed to work with cable signals, and can't really handle the noise and multipath that OTA (over the air) signals typically have. There's simply no room in that tiny unit to put the extra circuitry to take care of that.

The RF signal, either analog or digital, behaves exactly the same.

 

ummm no.

lot of people are having problems with the digital signal. my aunt had to cut down her trees just to get her tv to work. my neighbor had to relocate his ota antannae.

quite a few people had problems with there tv's once the analog signal was shut down.

there are a lot of towns in the mountains that had to sign up for satellite service cuz they can't get the digital signal.

 

The problem with the transition to ATSC is that at the time of the transition, most of the stations went from a high power transmitter at their primary site to a lower power backup transmitter at a less-than-optimal location. Hence, the signal was weaker.

Also, if your local station was a VHF (2-13) station, their digital channel is most likely on a UHF frequency, which has very different propagation characteristics.

If a station was 1000 kW analog on channel 2, and went digital with 1000 kW on channel 2, most people in the viewing area would see a definite improvement in picture quality.

TL/DR: VHF -> UHF makes a much bigger difference in received signal quality than the change from analog to digital.

 

ok, you go with that theory.