Last night on my way home from work I stopped at Best Buy to pick up an over-the-air HDTV tuner for my computer.
It’s an external USB tuner, which I figure I might as well have, as it allows me to pick up HD broadcasts on any of my computers, but can, of course, be of immediate use with Hugin and the HDTV.
I plugged it in and Windows was able to immediately recognize it and download and install the driver for it. Once I went into Media Center, Media Center immediately recognized that I had a new tuner and ran the configuration wizard, which included recognizing what digital channels are available over the air in this area (based on entering my Zip Code), and showing me the signal strength for each available channel. I was surprised that I could get any signal at all, given the dinky antenna that came with the tuner (roughly the size of a cell phone antenna), but ultimately I was able to get about three channels really clearly, with another one that came in, but was choppy and had a lot of artifacts.
Of course, then came the problem of actually trying to watch the channels. I knew that Media Center could support two tuners, but when I checked the guide, it was only showing the guide for the existing analog tuner, with no apparent method for switching to the digital tuner.
I did a lot of searching online to figure out how to get them to work together and ran through the setup multiple times, before discovering that I’m an idiot, and that Media Center simply appends the HD channels to the end of the analog guide, rather than creating a separate guide.
Which, in hindsight, was really obvious, and I already said that I’m an idiot, so shut up.
(I’ve just taken note of the fact that on the HDTV I can have Word display three pages side-by-side onscreen and retain readability)
Given the surprising success of the cheap and dinky antenna, I ventured out today and bought a better one (a $40 RCA amplified antenna that was on sale for $17 because it was an open box item). With it I can get even more channels and all of the channels I’d been getting are clearer (with one odd exception that actually got worse with the better antenna).
Of course, there’s nothing on today but football, so it’s not like I’m getting any benefit from the clarity of the picture, though I can see that it must be heaven for NFL fans because you can really see just how tight those pants are on the asses of the big, sweaty men as they’re bent over and the camera is focused squarely on those taut, rippling muscles in their buttocks. Hey, far be it from me to judge, football fans. That sort of thing isn’t my bag, but if you’re into staring at guys’ asses in high resolution, more power to you.
I watched Helloby Animated: Blood and Iron last night, and I can say that even an upconverted standard resolution DVD looks excellent. Can’t wait until I have actual high resolution DVDs.
Once I get moved into the new place I’ve decided that there are going to be some changes to my computer setup.
I won’t really have a space in the kitchen for Munin, and I’ve gotten to like having dual monitors, so I think that I’m going to set up the tablet PC in the kitchen, hook up Munin’s monitor as the secondary one on Hugin, and just set Munin aside for the time being.
The HDTV will be serving as just a TV until I get the new Media Center PC with the Cable Card tuner(s), which will be at least a month from now, as it’ll be custom built (and then I’ll have to have a Verizon tech come up and set up the Cable Card(s)), though I suppose that in the meantime I could hook Munin up to it for the purposes of living room Web surfing and whatnot. Even without Media Center on it, Munin could serve as a decent temporary home entertainment center.
Looks like you’ve been saved from the scrap heap, Munin.
Eventually I’ll probably either get a better second monitor for Hugin, or get a cheap monitor for Munin and turn Munin into a Linux box.
And somewhere along the line I’ll probably pick up one of the new Windows Home Server systems, whenever they finally start selling them.
When I was at Best Buy I noticed that a display featuring Weird Science on DVD, and I thought, “That’s one of those movies about which I sometimes think, ‘Why don’t I own that movie?’” so I decided to grab it, as it was only 10 bucks.
And now I think I’ll watch it. Mmm…upconverted Kelly LeBrock….
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