Watch TV Show On My PC
There are numerous ways on how you can watch your favorite TV show on your work or home PC. And thanks to technological advances in computing, this has never been much easier.
An influx of new hardware and software solutions has made it possible to turn your PC into an audio/visual dynamo!
It is now also possible to customize your PC so that it includes 5.1 surround sound capability and HDTV compatibility. These features were previously available only to home entertainment systems. Unfortunately, these systems would often cost a fortune!
Luckily, nowadays you wouldn’t have to spend half as much building your own home theater system using your PC as the foundation. Parts are readily available, thereby allowing you a multitude of options. And the advantage of the PC over a standard home entertainment system is that the PC is upgradeable. You will be able to remove and replace each part of your system if and when the need arises.
Watch via your DVD player
Most, if not all, recently purchased PCs will already come equipped with a DVD drive. In some cases, it would even be a DVD drive capable of ‘writing’ to a blank DVD disc. This is what is known as a DVD writer.
Having a DVD drive in your PC is the simplest way of being able to watch your favorite shows on your computer. All you will need to do is just go out and buy or rent, your favorite show from your local video shop, slide the disc inside the drive and enjoy the film.
No hassles and no additional installations or upgrades are required.
The only drawback is that, your options will be limited and will be based on the available titles that the store is carrying. If the show you want to watch is not available, it’s either you try another shop or you’ll just have to wait for it
Get a TV tuner
Your basic home PC will only come with a standard video card. All this card does is output the video information to your monitor. Since you’re looking to be able to watch TV shows on your PC, you need to purchase a separate device called a ‘TV tuner’.
From the name itself, it tunes in to available free-to-air programs and shows them on your PC’s monitor. TV tuner cards are relatively inexpensive. They fit into the PCI slot on the motherboard of your computer. And using the bundled software that comes with the card, you’ll be able to ‘channel-surf’ on your PC in no time.
The downside to using a TV tuner card is you will be limited to choose only from the available free-to-air programs. If the show you want is unavailable, then just try another channel.
And in some cases, depending on your location, reception might be less than good since free-to-air signals are often affected by weather and location.
Search and download:
The Internet has seen an exponential growth in file and content sharing websites due mainly to the increase in the number of people being able to access it. Most notable of all these was Napster. However, Napster was primarily used for music sharing.
Some websites have now emerged that allowed sharing of saved TV shows and movies from one computer to another, some of which are even in DVD format!
All you need to do is search for the title that you want to download and wait for the results. The huge number of PC’s connected to the network means that you have a good chance of finding the title that you are looking for!
This method only requires a fast enough broadband connection, especially if the show to be downloaded is saved as a huge file.
Although this may seem as a convenient alternative, this type of ‘file swapping’ is illegal as it infringes on the copyright of the films and shows being exchanged. Although, advocates of these websites have different views on the matter altogether.
Whichever option you choose, make sure that you follow all applicable laws. If abused, using your PC to view copyrighted material may result in video piracy. And piracy is stealing. You wouldn’t want to be called a thief now, would you?