Just bought a Hauppauge HVR-950 NTSC/ATSC digital/analog USB TV receiver
from Circuit City ($99). It's only a little bigger than a Bluetooth
dongle with the 'F' connector to hook the TV antenna to on the end. It
also comes with a 4" USB extension cable, which is a better idea. It
comes with a little magnetic mount UHF whip for the car to use with the
notebook, but you'll need a boat UHF TV antenna unless you're within 10
miles of the analog or digital TV station.

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/produ...ta_hvr950.html

It also works with Beyond TV, a better TIVO-like interface to zap the
billboard spam (commercials):
http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/

It does NOT do digital cable as that requires a cable company decoder
ring from Space Command Central.

So far, great DTV pictures from the local stations in Charleston, located
10 miles N of Mt Pleasant at Awendaw, SC, on 2000' towers. I could get
all but the low band VHF 2,4 and 5 analog signals and all of the DTV UHF
stations with only momentary balking of the DTV decoding right in front
of Circuit City's store where I installed it into a Gateway AMD Turion 64
wide screen notebook. I'm going to haul out my outside TV antenna from
the warehouse in the morning and put it up, again, at the house. The
little antenna isn't quite enough down here on the river as the stations
are up over the little sand hill behind me. DTV isn't a miracle, you
know...(c;

At 3" long and USB dongle wide/thick, it'll fit in any nook in the boat
when you're not using it. Don't expect to watch TV while a notebook is
doing other processes. THAT isn't going to happen as 90% of my fast
Turion's processing power is simply absorbed decoding the DTV signal.

The software also includes a time scheduler that has channel control and
stores TIVO-style to your hard drive from 1-5GB/hour...digital recording
and playback in MPEG-2 format which looks nice, too.

$99 is cheap, compared to all the LCD TVs. You already have a fast
notebook, right?...(c;

Ah, I just found 25' of RG-6 with F connectors on it so I can remote the
little antenna just for tonight....(c; I can watch the election madness
tomorrow on all the channels....(d^

Hey! I had to do something new! I sent back the defective Dell Axim
X51v PDA that sucked....(d^

Larry
--
Halloween candy left over.....
Is there a downside?