With a coaxial cable hooked up to my media center pc I only recieve those limited channels that come direct throught the coaxial. I am not trying to do anything illeagal i am just trying to be able to pause and record all the channels that I pay for throught my cable provider. Basically in order to recieve all programing I would have to hook up the media center pc after my cable box, but then how do I change the channel on the cable box, "manualy"?, that defeats the purpose. It is my understanding that "TIVO" uses some type of optical device that is placed on the front of the cable box and then changes the channels itself. Anyone know of a device like that for resale that I may be able to use. Otherwise my cable box is equipped with two ports one being USB and another being IR, (the IR port kinda looks like a headphone jack) Does anyone know if these ports could be used?, Thirdly my cable box is equipped with a "cable card", I have seen newer TV's that you can actually plug these "cable cards" into, and use your tv as the tuner. Anyone know if that is an option with some type of PCI card of some sort? If anyone has any ideas or any suggestions please let me know or include a link in your post. Thank you in advance. Any further info will gladly be supplied.
For controlling the cable box, you need an IR Blaster. You can get these online or they come with many tv tuner cards. The Hauppauge PVR 150 for example. This allows you to use your pc tv tuner remote and it forwards the signal on to the cable box. There's a bit of delay this since it has to resend the commands.
