Thursday, September 22, 2011

How Can I Watch Cable TV On My Laptop

By Kevin Bryant


Somewhere back in the 1930s or 1940s, television was as simple as simple can be. Things were done live mainly because the technology for recording programs hadn't been invented yet. Basically, a camera caught the action and transmitted it via an electric current, from which the antenna converted it back into the original images and sound. But things have changed since that time. The question we should be asking now is this: How can I watch cable TV on my laptop?

Cable television was formerly known as Community Antenna Television (CATV). It is a system that provides TV programs to consumers by way of radio frequency signals that are transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses. Similar to the over-the-air method, this system made use of television antenna in order to broadcast television. The difference, however, is that cable television utilized cables rather than airwaves in order to send signals.

During that time, the only people who had television sets were those who lived on higher ground, or those who were close to the source of the program. This is because television signals back then were actually transmitted over radio frequencies, which travel in straight lines. Everything changed when the people who lived in the valleys of Pennsylvania came up with a creative solution to their viewing woes. What they did was that they put up antennas on the high spots and the tallest hills around them, and then ran cables down to their homes so that they could receive the signals clearly. This paved the way for what we know now as cable television.

As technology advanced through the years, cable TV also developed more and more. The introduction of fiber-optic cable, for example, allowed cable providers to offer this service with much-improved quality. One of the big advantages to fiber-optic cable was that it wasn't subject to the interference challenges of the earlier coaxial cable. Another development is the MPEG compression. This technology converts signals from analog to digital, thereby increasing bandwidth capacity.

Also, we can now watch cable TV on a desktop or laptop computer. How? Well, you can make use of devices like a PC TV tuner card. PC TV tuners are connected to the computer, and then the cable or antenna television source is also connected to the device just like you would connect to any typical TV.

You see, modern technology has changed the way TV works. Today, the answer to the question "how can I watch cable TV on my laptop" is just within our grasp.




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