Vic Smith <thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote
> fondue <me@wrk.au> wrote
>> Vic Smith <thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote
>>> William <nospam@pacifier.com> wrote

>>>> Anyway, I am going to enjoy watching my TV on my
>>>> computer for Thanksgiving and work out this problem later.

>>> Just curious about why you like a TV card.

>> I have a separate capture card so have none of the
>> conflicts you refer to. I make a point of watching
>> what I record, after all that was what I recorded it for.

> Do you listen to the TV and other computer audio such as that from
> net video at once? Or if you are listening to a TV news program
> and execute a Youtube video does the video take charge of sound?

>> I have a two monitors, and usually watch programs at my PC. I hardly
>> watch "live" television, and if I happen to catch one episode some
>> series I want to watch, I can use the internet as my PVR ;-)

> Sounds neat, but I've never heard of "internet as PVR."
> Can you briefly explain that?

It just involves getting the extra episodes using torrent or emule.

I got the entire series with some like The Wire and The Shield
when I saw some favourable comments on them in a usenet group.

Not always ideal tho, some of the more obscure stuff
like the Last Detective arent easy to find and one I
missed on free to air TV has got stuck at 96%.

>> If I find a myself web browsing, or doing something on the other
>> screen while watching a program, then it means I am really not
>> interested in the program, so I stop watching, and delete it. I find
>> it quite a good method of choosing what I really want to watch/do.

> Yes, I find that when I'm playing an intense part of a game my brain
> turns off the TV sounds. If this is extended for a while I turn the
> TV off at the first break. Sometimes I miss something I wanted to
> watch because I am completely involved with the game. That's ok.
> It is more usual though that when something comes on TV I'm interested
> in, I stop gaming. I then continue web browsing or ng reading during
> commercials.

>> If a game is so uninvolving that I can listen/watch a program in a
>> meaningful way, (unless it is freecell or something), then it's
>> probably not worth playing, so I will move onto something else.

> Well, some modern games can be played for months, full-time.
> I just interrupt the game at the point where there is something on
> TV that overrides the game according to my personal priorities.

>> I don't have a PVR or set top box so I can record widescreen
>> programs using the digital tuner, and at least see the full screen

> Yes, that's nice.

>> For the most part I tend to only download/record things I want to
>> watch, rather than something which is vaguely interesting, because I
>> know I will likely not watch it. IMHO the majority of commecial news
>> services aren't worth watching/listening to becuase they are so
>> shallow, so I'm more likely to get my news elsewhere.

> I do watch many cable political programs despite the dreck.
> But often also watch PBS, BBC, History Channel, etc.

Yeah, I mostly watch docos and a small subset of drama series.
I dont watch stuff like the Sopranos, Bones, Criminal Minds, CSI
etc, too artificial for me. I do watch most of the english crime series.

>> Your "downsides" sound like you made a bad choice of hardware
>> for what you want to do, though I expect the VIVO features of the
>> card sounded like good value for money at the time.

> Yes, the VIVO was a selling point, but frankly I didn't foresee that I
> wanted to play games like Far Cry while keeping the TV on and having
> its background presence allow me to switch from one to the other.
> But experience tells me that is what I want.

> As to the hardware issue, I don't yet see anyone answering the
> issue of multiple audio (we can listen to 2 streams at once), or the
> resource issue of running a game like Far Cry while recording video,
> though Rod's separate box solution covers that.

The digital capture cards would do that fine on the main machine.
It handles 4 of those on a rather elderly 900Mz Celeron with heaps
of cpu capacity to spare. Essentially because since they are capturing
digital TV they just essentiall spool the mpeg streams to the hard drive
and bugger all system resources are required to do that.

> We each have different "needs" and I enjoy learning how others deal
> with it. The 2 LCD solution would be an alternative for me, but given
> my gaming habits I would need a separate computer such as Rod uses.

Yeah, its very convenient, I use Synergy to share the one keyboard and mouse
and have a separate monitor on each PC and each has TV out as well.

> Since I find recording unnecessary, the less expensive TV works fine.
> Of course I may have read all of this thread before I made my AIW
> choice and gone ahead anyway and found it inadequate.
> Experience was the best teacher in this case. But it doesn't hurt
> to lay out that experience for others in case it's relevant to them.

Yeah, specially when the cost of the hardware isnt trivial so it costs to try.