OK everyone make fun of me. But seriously, I don't have a TV. I just upgraded to FIOS from old Earthlink DSL and I am totally in heaven. I have had FIOS for about two months. The set top box is sitting right here next to me with the coax cable just laying here. Waiving in the breeze.
Getting Showtime On Demand is worth every penny I pay Verizon. And TNT. Together these networks have my favorite shows and I have been paying Amazon $1.99 per episode to watch them. Or with Showtime having to wait a year to get the DVD.
But now after two months I am thinking I might like to see what's in that Set Top Box. Ideally I would like to connect it directly to my PC. I have an HP Pavillion HDX9494nr Entertainment Notebook PC and based on what I have read I should be able to do this. But the coax cable on the set top box does not fit the coax connection on the PC. Both seem to be male and I must need some sort of adapter. I thought I would take a picture of the connections and take the documentation and drive around maybe to Radio Shack or some similar place.
My questions. First, is this possible? Can I connect the set top box to my pc somehow? I am willing to buy a USB TV Receiver if I need to.
Or should I not even try and go out and buy a cheap 19 inch tv and just plug it in for the occasional show that I can't get on demand (Person of Interest). BBC America.
Anything that comes out of the coax from the STB will not be in HD. Now your HP laptop may have some type of HD tuner, perhaps QAM or ATSC, I would need to look that up. The output of the STB if coax would be for like a NTSC channel 3 or 4 type thing which would only provide a SD signal. You did not mention what type of Set Top Box you have?
I have used a computer monitor before with component input connections from the STB, and that did provide a nice HD picture. I would say your best bet would be go get a low cost HD TV. I spent $150 for a 19" or 24" or something Westinghouse, I would need to go look, and don't remember exactly. The black is not the best black in a dark scene, and the sound leaves much to be desired, but it is connected HDMI to a CHS435HDC HD DVR in our guest room. Now I have a couple of Vizio TVs that I spent $250-$300 on and they are much better. Also a real small 19" 4:3 flat panel TV in our kitchen that is on its last leg. It his connected to a CHS335HDC STB. Our main viewer is a 46" Samsung that is about 5 years old and the picture is very nice. We are a 5 TV household.
You may be able to find some type of USB dongle that would provide a component input to Laptop, but by the time you go through all that, You may be able to just find a low price TV that could fit somewhere.
Right now there are about 75 channels you can view without a STB, but on the devices shown here. Otherwise you would need a STB connected to some type of display. A TV or Computer Monitor would work. I have replaced computer monitors with a decent TV. My daughter uses a 32" Vizio for everything. I have also streamed the 75 channels from Xbox to out 46" Samsung. Just to provide some ideas.
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