Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to record your favorite TV shows so you can watch them when you want to? Sure, you can use the DVR that your cable or satellite company provides but that costs money every month. Here’s how you can do it for free, the only cost is the TV tuner card for your computer. Here’s how we do it:
1. Head over to Hauppauge Computer Works Click on the Products at the top and check out their selection of tuners. Some fit inside your desktop, some connect via USB and others sit beside your dekstop or laptop, something like a game console. This is the card that we have in one of our desktop computers:
This card has two tuners. We can record one show while watching another. Or record two shows at the same time.
2. If you have a laptop or if you don’t want to open your dekstop, Hauppauge also makes USB tuners. Here is what one of these looks like:
These work fairly well but ours got very hot. After a year or so it stopped working.
Watch out for these USB tuners. What you gain in ease of use, you lose in reliability. We strongly recommend a tuner card that fits inside a desktop.
3. Every tuner comes with a complete set of software. TV tuner software consists of two things. First, you have a driver, the thing that Windows uses to interact with your card. The second bit of software is the interface, the thing that you use to watch and record television. Hauppauge uses a product called ‘WinTV’ but some tuners will work with other TV software. We’ve found WinTV to work perfectly well and the only reason you might want to use something else is because you aren’t using Windows. MythTV is popular with Linux and, from what we hear, it’s a magnificent, free program.
4. Depending on whether you bought a card that fits in your desktop or a USB that plugs into a free slot, make sure you read the installation manual before you go ahead and install the software. Some USB products ask you to install the software first, then plug in the product. Read the ‘Getting Started’ booklet before you begin.
5. While these tuners work with regular subscription cable TV, we use ours with a very basic OTA (over the air) antenna. The antenna is connected to the tuner with RG9 coaxial wire, the same wire that your cable or satellite company uses. We’re in Toronto so our antenna faces south and brings in about twenty-five crystal clear HDTV channels. We also get a few SD (standard definition) channels, ones that are not available by subscription. One of these, named AntennaTV, broadcasts retro shows from the early days of television. Take a look at their site to see what you’re missing: AntennaTV site
6. When you’re ready to get going, your tuner software will automatically search for all of the channels available from your antenna. It lists them one by one as they are tuned, finally giving you a total number. If you know there are more available, you could try to adjust the direction your antenna is facing. Even a few inches one way or the other can make a difference. Be patient, it’s all worth it.
7. Here is a shot of the tuner interface:
Everything is controlled from this screen.
The GUI has buttons across the bottom that you’ll gradually get used to using. From left to right: settings, OSD (on screen display), file open (to play a pre-recorded video file), snapshot, closed caption. Yes, you can turn down the sound and read the words on the screen. To the right are the normal DVR or VCR controls that you should be very familiar with. The red button on the left is for instant recordings but you can also schedule WinTV to record by itself automatically. Set up the timer, tell it how long you want to record any channel and you’re set. Just remember to leave your computer running. WinTV does not have to be on to record but your computer does.
Finally, remember that the recordings that you make take up a lot of room. A few hours of HDTV can easily gobble up thirty gigabytes of disk space. Because of this, we use a three gigabyte drive on the computer that uses the TV tuner card. On top of that we watch the shows then delete them as soon as we can. If we want to archive the recordings, we will convert them to a format that retains the quality but takes up far less room on our hard drive. MKV is the format we use.
Thanks for reading! We have lots of fun with our OTA/tuner card setup and hope that you will soon do the same. Questions or comments are welcome. You can also ask questions on our Facebook page. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
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We’re all about saving money here on Computers Made Simple. Although we haven’t had any cable or satellite TV for years, we are still able to watch just about anything we want, when we want. Here’s how we do it:
1. OTA (over the air) TV – Every new HDTV comes with what they call an ATSC tuner. All this means to you is that you can hook up a basic antenna to the TV and receive at least a few channels, all for free. We are in Canada, Toronto to be specific, so we have a wide choice of absolutely free OTA television. Your total channel selection may vary but we get at least twenty-five HDTV stations plus some incidental SD (standard definition) ones. The best part of this is that the HDTV channels are much crisper than what we would get if we paid for cable. Why? Because your cable company compresses the HDTV channels that it receives by satellite and OTA antenna before they send them off to you. The definition of the free OTA reception will astound you.
A basic antenna like this will give you many free Over The Air TV channels in full High Definition.
2. Netflix/Hulu etc. – If you have a reasonably fast Internet connection and a decent usage cap, let’s say something around 200 to 300 gigabytes a month, you can access more streaming movies and TV than you can watch in a lifetime. We’ve had Netflix for years and love it. It’s cheap, $7.99 a month, and provides complete TV series plus its own home-made content. Indeed, some of the Netflix creations are just as popular as those put out by the larger cable producers, HBO for instance. Hulu isn’t available here in Canada, not without a VPN anyway, but it and other providers offer very popular content too. Most recent DVD players and some HDTVs have the ability to stream all of these providers and more. As well, the Play Station game consoles and Apple TV are capable of supplying the HDTV content to your HDTV.
For $7.99 a month, Netflix streams thousands of movies and TV shows.
3. Sports Subscriptions – Every major league sport offers a premium subscription package which allows you to watch virtually every game in their respective seasons. From hockey to baseball to soccer and basketball, you can get your fill of game play for around $100.00 per year. We subscribe to the Major League Baseball package and we get all pre-season games plus the full regular season and playoffs. On top of that, we can watch any game at a time that suits us, not only when it’s on live. Many of you spend that much per month to see a few games per month. The package is a fantastic deal compared to regular cable, at least in our opinion.
Costs are low for full season entertainment.
4. Network Streaming – Except in some cases, the Olympics being one, all the major networks stream their own shows from their respective sites. Yes, you have to watch ads but you get complete episodes without resorting to illegal torrents or any number of foreign sites that stream these shows as well. In the case of the Olympics, NBC has chosen to lock-out non-cable viewers. In Canada, the CBC streams live and recorded Olympic content to anyone, as long as they are in Canada, that is.
5. Alternative Streaming Sites – Every now and then we find something that we want to watch but can’t find coverage through any of our regular sources. In those cases, we turn to the darker side of the Internet and watch the event on one of the many streaming sites that are out there. Unless you have a good ad blocker as well as an excellent anti-virus app, we wouldn’t recommend this. We also won’t suggest any sites since many have adult ads and pop-ups. The option is there if you want to pursue it but be careful.
6. TV Capture Cards – Your new HDTV is great for OTA viewing but sometimes you might want to have access to a DVR (digital video recorder). For that, we suggest one the many Hauppauge tuner cards for your computer. We have used Hauppauge products for years. Our latest card has two tuners and can record either two shows at the same time or one while you watch something else. Pricing varies but everything you need is in the box. Additionally, if you have am HDTV somewhere else in your home, you can stream content from your computer using an Xbox 360 game console or several other types of hardware.
This little puck is amazing. Price can be under $100.00 by times and the selection of streaming apps is huge.
The options are out there. You don’t have to pay through the nose for entertainment, no matter what your cable company says. There are alternatives, some free, some very low cost.
Thanks for reading! For updates on all of our posts, like us on Facebook and ask there. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
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We’re in Canada, as many of you already know. Compared to the United States, our customer base for services such as telephone and Internet are quite small, only 10% the size of the U.S. On top of that we’re spread out across the second largest country in the world. Is it any wonder that some of our costs are higher than they are south of the border? Add to this the fact that we have two mega-companies that border on monopolies, thanks for our current and previous governments’ non-intervention. In their view, bigger is better and to heck with competition!
Thankfully, we have a couple of independent ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who offer lower prices than the big guys and, in some cases, better customer service. We’ll get to the customer service later but for now, let’s compare prices.
Three Scenarios
In order to get to the bottom of the pricing question, we have to set up three different comparisons. Since Worldline offers a bundle price and Teksavvy doesn’t, we’ll compare the following:
1. Internet by itself.
2. Home phone by itself.
3. Internet and phone together. Worldline only.
Standalone Internet (DSL)
Clean, concise with charges well laid out. That’s Teksavvy.
We decided to look at the basic DSL rates for this post. Why? Basically because it’s the cheapest but also because our experience with cable, at least where we are, hasn’t been great, to say the least. Cable Internet is very dependent on such things as temperature, distance from the amplifier as well as how many other users are on your particular ‘network’. With DSL, there are no screw-in connectors that are affected by temperature and no bandwidth-sharing. DSL is affected by the distance from the telco office but that usually isn’t a big problem, at least not in our area.
Fees for both companies are made up of the basic service, we chose 6 Mbps/unlimited gigabytes in each case, plus the cost of the modem and activation. Here is the breakdown as of February 13, 2014:
Worldline: $39.95 a month plus a $25.00 activation promo. Add $29.95 for a modem and you’re away…sort of. There seems to be a ‘Regulatory and Essential Services Fee’ of $5.00 floating around somewhere. This ‘non-governmental’ charge may not be applied to standalone Internet service but it does raise its ugly head in the bundle price we will look at later. Add this up and you’ll get $95.00 for your first month then $39.95 after that. We have a 13% HST tax that is added on top but that changes from province to province so it’s not included. NOTE: If Wordline does indeed charge a network access fee as described above, add $5.00 to the $39.95.
Teksavvy: $39.95 a month plus $75.00 for the modem and a $50.00 activation fee. First month total becomes $165.00, substantially higher than Worldline but keep in mind the $5.00 monthly fee that we think Worldline charges. The fee isn’t mentioned on their site and the only reason we know about is because we are currently paying it. It would only take a year to make up the difference in initial charges, then it’s a dead heat after that.
Home Phone:
Lots of flash, lots of ‘call now’, lots of ‘limited time offers’. That’s Wordline.
When you’re talking about home phones these days, you’re far better to go with VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) instead of the normal POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). Why? If you go with VOIP, you’ve got a whole host of features at your fingertips for little or no cost. Add to that the very low cost of long distance charges and switching to VOIP is a no-brainer. Check your monthly phone bill and see how much you’re paying for ‘extras’ such as caller ID or call waiting. Sure, many of these can be bundled for a bit lower monthly rate but you’ll never get the same price as you will with VOIP.
In each case, we’re looking at digital home phone with unlimited North American long distance. In case you are wondering, yes, you can keep your existing number.
Without getting too technical, VOIP uses the same strategy as SKYPE does when you’re making a call. All of your voice data travels over the Internet instead of being routed through telephone switching offices. Voice quality is the same so don’t worry that you’ll sound a million miles away when you’re making a call. The main technical glitch is that in order to use VOIP, you need what is called a ‘dry loop’. Essentially this means that your phone line won’t have a dial-tone until it comes out through your modem. Since you’re not connected to your local phone company any more, the line can’t be used until a modem is put in line between the copper wire and your telephone. Dry loops cost money, usually consisting of a small monthly fee. Here are the breakdowns for VOIP phone services:
Worldine: $19.95 monthly plus $49.95 for the modem (currently with a $25.00 mail-in rebate) plus what looks like a $10.00 a month fee for the dry loop. There is also a $9.95 Dry Loop Activation fee. Again, we assume that there is a $5.00 per month ‘essential services’ fee. Total becomes: $85.00 for the first month then $35.00 after that. (We stand to be corrected here but that’s the total as we see it from the site. If Wordline finds that figure to be incorrect, we’d love to see where a complete breakdown is, one that a customer can read before calling to sign up. )
Teksavvy: $22.95 per month plus $49.95 for the modem and $10.00 shipping. Teksavvy does NOT have an essential services fee nor do they have a dry loop charge for this particular service. Initial outlay becomes $83.00 for the first month and only @22.95 after that. All figures are plus 13% HST, of course.
Home Phone and Internet Bundle:
Only Worldline offers a bundle but, unfortunately, it does not compare directly with the phone service listed above. Their price of $49.95 a month only includes long distance inside Canada, not North America. Since we already have this package, we know that the total is actually $54.95 a month because of the essential services fee. On top of that, it is impossible to figure out what your initial fee will be since none of this is listed on the Worldline site, this despite the very clear wording in their Terms And Conditions:
Seems clear here but nowhere near as clear on the site itself.
It seems that Worldline’s webmasters didn’t read their own company’s Terms and Conditions, doesn’t it? When you actually sign up for the service, there is a raft of extras that you’ll have to cough up before installation. Of the two companies, Teksavvy’s site is much clearer about the preliminary charges.
We’ll leave it up to you as to which company offers you the best price but there is something else to consider when you’re trying to make a decision here. That something else is customer service. Since we deal with both companies, we know what we’re talking about here. For us, there is one clear winner here and that is Teksavvy. Why? Because when we make a call to them, we aren’t routed offshore, no matter if we’re calling because our Internet isn’t working or we have a question about our bill. Before you get your back up about how this sounds, here is what we’re talking about. When you finally decide to go with Worldline, your call is answered by a polite and knowledgeable CSR. That CSR isn’t in Canada or the U.S. and English is most certainly NOT their first language. What’s the problem here? Well, the further you go in the process, the less you will be able to understand. The conversation will be recorded and you will have to verbally agree to certain things along the way. Trust us, the call will take a while because of the frequent repitition of certain words and terms that aren’t clear the first time you hear them. Also, from our experience, the lines Worldine uses for tech support and billing are not as good as the home phone lines they sell. Whether this is because the calls go to the Dominican Republic and their infrastructure isn’t up to snuff, we can’t say.
Teksavvy, on the other hand, is a night and day difference when you’re calling about billing or tech problems. Crystal clear lines, very patient and knowledgeable CSRs that seem to ooze genuine friendliness. How un-friendly is Worldline? We remember politely interrupting a tech CSR during his instructions only to get the reply, “Look. Do you want me to help fix your Internet or not?” Yes, we were shocked too.
We all like to think that we get what we pay for. In this case, you have to look beyond the monthly fees, even though they are actually quite close. If you depend on service from time to time, there is only one choice. If handling a router or modem isn’t on your list of ‘fun things to do’, stick with Teksavvy and you won’t be disappointed. If saving a bit of money is your preference and you’re a bit more comfortable with Internet technology, head over to Worldline. You might get the odd surprise but, overall, the monthly charges should be less except as noted above.
Thanks for reading! Comments and questions are always welcome. Use the form below or, better yet, like us on Facebook and ask there. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook Keep up to date on our posts and occasional tips and tricks.
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We encountered a scenario yesterday that we didn’t think was unique, a situation that many empty-nesters find themselves in all over Canada and the U.S. We spoke to someone who is slowly retiring, he’s down to a day a week now and works solely to keep his additional health benefits. In Canada, just so you know, basic healthcare is free but does not include private or semi-private rooms, dental care or prescriptions. In this case prescriptions aren’t a concern since they’re free for seniors anyway. Faced with a fixed income, many people are looking for ways to lower their monthly bills. Cutting the cable is where we can offer some help.
Current Costs:
We’ll work on a figure of $150.00 a month for a cable TV package that includes Internet, TV and cell phone. On top of that, there is a charge for a landline and long distance calls from another company. That amounts to about $60.00 a month with the ability to call anywhere in the U.S. or Canada at no extra charge. Total then is approximately $210 a month.
Needs:
Bob, not his real name, doesn’t use his home phone (landline) very much at all. The possibility exists to dispose of that charge completely, leaving the long distance charges to be transferred to his cell phone plan.
As far as entertainment goes, Bob really only watches sports on his TV, despite having the normal 500 channels available to him. His sport is basketball and he probably watches thirty games a month during the NBA season.
The Internet is almost not part of the equation, at this point anyway, since Bob’s needs for bandwidth are very small. Email, sharing photos and Skype are about all he does on his iPad. Our plans will certainly change this usage but it will be worth it.
Options:
As we see it, there are a few ways we could go here but we’ll stick to one for now. The toughest item might just be the TV package but we’re fairly sure that Bob could get by using the Internet for news and entertainment in lieu of the hefty monthly charge from the cable company. Solutions:
An Internet/home phone package that includes unlimited Internet usage plus unlimited long distance in North America, complete with premium features can be had for about $85.00 a month from a small but very reputable Canadian company. There would be some extra costs in setting things up, items such as a modem, shipping and an activation fee. Let’s put a figure of $200.00 on this. That figure is on the very high side, by the way, but we don’t want to low-ball anyone on this. (We should point out that a 300 gigabyte a month plan would be about $12.00 less every month but, for now, we’ll use the figure for unlimited Internet usage.)
$23 a month for a full-featured home phone package.
Unlimited High Speed Internet for $45.00 a month.
As far as entertainment goes, there are Netflix and the various sports packages available, all able to be streamed to HDTVs or mobile devices. Netflix is $7.99 a month while NBA League Pass is only $80.00 for the full season. All the major sports have packages such as this. Not only can you see your home team in action but you can follow any team around the league. Divided by twelve, even the most expensive package is only $10.00 a month. On top of that, we’d suggest a VPN account in order to access the American version of Netflix as well as to defeat the blackouts that prevail in professional sports. An account with the VPN that we use is only $4.99 a month.
Lastly, Bob uses his cell phone a fair bit. He travels frequently to the States however so we’re looking at a plan that would allow him unlimited roaming in the U.S. We’ve found one that includes everything for $55.00 a month. Everything in this case is unlimited data (to a 5 gigabyte limit before speed limitations set in), unlimited text and talk across Canada and the U.S. Add a new phone to that and you’re looking at $80.00 a month for the first year, $55.00 a month thereafter.
Netflix, NBA League Pass, they’re all out there for not too much money.
Totalling It Up:
Let’s add it all up: (Costs are for the first year, everything would be lower after that since we’ve built the extras into the monthly fee)
Internet and home phone: $85.00/month
Entertainment: $33.00/month including two sports full season packages.
Apple TV: Required to stream the Internet entertainment to Bob’s HDTV, $10.00/month for the first year, free after that.
Cell phone: $80/month for the first year, $55/month after that.
Total: $208.00 for the first year, $163 afterwards. Take out one of the sports packages and the price drops a bit to around $150.00 per month for a saving of $60.00 a month from what Bob is currently spending. The plus side is that he would be getting substantially more for less, except for the cable TV channel assortment.
Once Bob pays for the hardware and miscellaneous expenses, the monthly price would be substantially less than what he’s paying now. On top of that, dropping the home phone would lower the monthly tag even more. Whether or not you see yourself in this picture, we hope we’ve shown you that there are options open to you. You don’t have to be tied to your cable or phone company. Cutting the cable can put some money back in your wallet . Depending on where you live, there are probably many more options out there than you realize.
Thanks for reading! As always, if you need help, ask us. Use the comment section below or head over and check out our Facebook page. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook Keep up to date on our posts and occasional tips and tricks.
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Here’s a link that might help us if you are interested in hosting your own blog with Fatcow Hosting. We’ve signed up to become an affiliate and we make a bit of money if you sign up for hosting via this link: FatCow Hosting Thanks!
We’ve written many posts about how to start your own website, how to create your dot com dream, etc. It has occurred to us that while you are doing that, you could also take advantage of the unlimited storage space that many hosting companies offer. If you’re worried about the security of third-party cloud storage, and you should, this is a perfect, secure solution. Here’s an example of the unlimited storage accounts we’re talking about:
$50 – $100 per year for gigabytes of storage. Not bad!
The ad infers that a hosting account is only $49 a year but that’s only for the first year. After that it’s double but still not a bad deal when you consider that you also get unlimited site hosting. By comparison, Dropbox seems more expensive, no hosting included:
$9.99 a month works out to be more than the hosting account.
Once you get the account, all you’d have to do is make a folder in the root directory, name it ‘storage’ or something similar, then use Filezilla or another free FTP client to upload your photos, videos, etc. Once you have the main folder ready, just make new folders inside of it to keep everything separate. All hosting companies offer a mini-file manager which is available through the various types of control panels but we would suggest using FTP instead.
Once you have some items in the folder, you can set up different FTP accounts which would allow you to share your material with others. You would control which folder(s) they would have access to, download limits and so on. Some hosts don’t allow you to play around with FTP accounts but all companies must give you at least one. Once you get used to FTP and using the various apps in the host’s control panel, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t do all of this earlier.
As always, if you need help, ask us. Use the comment section below or head over and check out our Facebook page. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook Keep up to date on our posts and occasional tips and tricks.
Thanks for reading!
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Here’s a link that might help us if you are interested in hosting your own blog with Fatcow Hosting. We’ve signed up to become an affiliate and we make a bit of money if you sign up for hosting via this link: FatCow Hosting Thanks!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
