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Recording Television from your PC

The shift towards the PC as the center of your living room is increasing in scope and stature due to the ubiquity of digital formats for all kinds of entertainment types. TV. Music. Photos. Games. Radio. Digital signals allow different media types to co-exist together, received and exchanged on one common home network fluidly and fast.

TV broadcast signals are no exception, being the digital hub of all things entertaining. The only hardware needed is a PC, tuner card, and the right kind of multimedia software to start watching and recording all your favorite TV programs. In this article we will show you why recording on the PC has many distinct and clear-cut advantages over consumer recorders.

 

Top 10 Reasons

Let's take a look at the Top 10 reasons why recording TV from your PC is better than a plain and rigid-looking consumer recorder! We'll use CES 2005 Awards Honoree CyberLink PowerCinema 4 as an example.

10.

Your software looks more stylish and dynamic than those cold and gray hardware recorders! Happy spirits always facilitates TV recording.
9. Games. Games. And more games. What better way to relax than play games while recording your TV shows?
8.

Editing recorded TV content with CyberLink MagicDirector (complements PowerCinema and MCE), the extraordinarily fantastic digital home software that edits videos in seconds. After recording your favorite TV content, MagicDirector can automatically clean and edit video content or an instant movie theme for you to produce a stylish home movie. The best part is that you even do it all by remote control! Convenience at its purest.
7. EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) support. Either schedule TV recording with Internet EPG or Teletext EPG. All it takes is a few clicks and your favorite shows will be recorded for an eternity. For services in your country, click here.
6. Burning recorded TV content to disc with CyberLink MakeDVD (complements PowerCinema and MCE), the digital home burning software that burns photos, videos and music to DVDs all via remote control. TV content on a disc, as fast as possible and portable to boot!
  5. Supports both Analog and Digital TV signals! PowerCinema 4 comes with a hybrid TV-tuner card that can simultaneously access and display both digital or analog TV signals. Two is always better than one!
  4. Radio. Radio. And more radio. What better way to relax than listen to the radio while recording your TV shows?
  3.

Preview up to 16 channels* at once! Picture-in-picture? Maybe a maximum of 4 channels. PowerCinema tops any TV or consumer recorder by leaps and bounds with 16 channels (*Widescreen mode) to quickly guide you to the channel you want to record.
  2. Dynamic enhancements. With consumer recorders, what you buy is what you get, forever. For software, you can continuously upgrade or add enhancements to super-size your digital home entertainment center such as burning DVDs or editing video from the comforts of your own couch with MakeDVD 2 and MagicDirector respectively. You can also expand and enhance your surround sound audio with the Dolby Audio or DTS packs.
  1. Software upgrades. Consumer recorders are rigid hardware with a lack of flexibility for recent trends or new file formats support. You're stuck with what you purchase for at least a few years. For software, you can continuously upgrade or add enhancements to super-size your digital home center to an entertainment behemoth.

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