Hacking Windows7 MediaCenter: Adding ATSC to Windows 7 Media Center

Peter Near's blog has a post on adding ATSC support to your Media Center box:

First, some background. Like the United States, Canada has decided to transition all television broadcasts from analog to digital. These new digital signals have greater effective range, provide a crystal-clear high definition picture, and as with all over the air network TV broadcasts are free and legal to access. It's worth noting that over the air signals represent the best high-definition picture quality you can get for network television - better than cable and much better than satellite. While high definition is available for a fee via cable and satellite, those high definition channels are subject to ever-increasing compression and picture quality degradation as they try to squeeze more and more content into your subscription. And unlike cable and satellite, over the air broadcasts are not encrypted and can be easily incorporated into a Media Center setup, copied over to your iPod, and are generally easy to use. The United States has nearly completed their digital transition, and will be shutting down the analog broadcasts in February 2009. Canada is well into its transition, with most major markets now broadcasting in digital and 100% of the country switching over to digital by 2011 before we shut down our analog transmitters. Here in Toronto, I can get access to every major US and Canadian network in full high-definition glory using a $40 antenna that I put in my attic.

You can find the rest of the post where you'll be taken through adding ATSC to 7MC using a SiliconDust HDHomerun (a popular clearQAM and ATSC tuner) over on his blog at The Green Button.

Written by MHealy