Home audio & video: recording tv to computer then playback on tv

lots of options

what I'm about to say assumes you have a relatively new and capable computer.

You can go a lot of ways. if you only want to record analog TV, then basic USB tuners work well. USB stick hybrid tuners will record Analog and digital (NTSC and ATSC) and can also work well. If your cable system transmits digital in the clear using QAM, you can get a USB tuner that does all of that, too, although my experience with it has been mixed (the Pinnacle tuner was just not up to snuff).

If you're looking to tune HD over antennae or QAM then look at the SiliconDust HDHomerun. This tunes in the channels, then converts it to put on your network. The signal from it can even be transmitted wirelessly once it's in your network. I have one and recommend it highly, but it only does digital, not Analog.

I have an AVerMedia external USB that work s great on NTSC Analog. I like AVerMedia over Pinnacle. I've never used Hauppauge.

As for software: For Windows, Windows Media Center is probably the biggest. However, it requires that your computer hardware be capable of using it. But I use it and like it. There is also Sage TV and Beyond TV. They ave trial versions to check out once you have a tuner. There are a couple of others, but these are what I think are the most viable. Of them all, I like Win Media Center the best. the downside, though is that it records in proprietary dr-ms format, which is very hard to edit - it needs to be converted to another format (Like MPEG) first, which takes a really long time.

Vista MC is better than the older MCE 2005 which ran on XP. the difference is that 2005 requires an analog USB tuner to get setup, whereas the Vist MCE does not (I mean, you can tune in digital stations only, but 2005 requires an analog tuner, too). Vista MCE also just seems to work better.

The good part is that Win MC can use Media Center extenders, such as one that Linksys has out, or an Xbox 360. They extend the Media Center from your computer through a wireless network to the TV in your living room. I don't know how well the Linksys MCE works, but reviews are good, also, I had an HP mediaSmart TV which could access Media Center files over wireless, and it not only worked, but things recorded in HD looked really good. So, the technology works. I'm getting one of these Media Centers myself.

Another good thing about MCE is that the electronic program guides are free. This makes the computer work like a free Tivo.

On Linux, MythTV is the thing to look at, but it requires a lot of setup and tweaking. MyTH is also supposed to run on OSX, but I haven't gotten it right so make no recommendations there. The Apple side is lacking in this regard.

What you might do is look into buying a Vista multimedia lapyop that has at least Vista premium on it (this is the lowest version that has MCE; some of these laptops include Tuners. My Toshiba did, and works well. The advantage is that the laptop will record to its local hard drive, and if you didn't want to go through the wireless setup, just connect it directly to your TV.

Hope this helps. It's a minefield, that's for sure. I pulled my hair out for months learning all this stuff on the fly.