Here I come to my difficulty. I do all of my TV viewing through my beloved three year old Topfield PVR. However, it's an SD model, so it can't be used to watch HD programs. I also don't like watching TV on my comparatively small monitor, and my PC is quite distant from my TV. My first solution was to use an AV transmitter that I already occasionally use to send YouTube from my PC to my TV. It produced a surprisingly acceptable picture, though it was less clear and a bit grimier than the PVR. However, I greatly missed the ad-skipping controls that the PVR provides. It also required the PC to be somewhat tied up in the TV process, especially as decoding the HD stream was quite CPU intensive. These factors made me abandon that procedure after a 2 hour trial.
For the moment, I have abandoned my HD watching. My ultimate solution will certainly be an HD PVR. However, some more interesting intermediate options I am considering are:
- Playstation 3 with the Play TV PVR add-on, or
- Recording the HD program on my SD Topfield 5000 PVR, and reading the HD file via USB on a laptop, and outputting the program on TV. This PVR can't play back HD, but it can record it. The recording can be seen through an attached computer, which can decode the file, and display the picture. This may sound similar to what I've tried, but having the PVR take care of the recording eliminates one major hassle. I'd still miss the ad-skipping, though. I also don't have a laptop, so I can't try this yet.
All of this proves that Channel Ten is succeeding in their attempt to encourage people to move to high definition digital television. However, perhaps the writers' strike may compel them to fill the schedule gaps on their main SD channel with sci-fi product that they have already bought. Let me dream...