Watching TV comfortably on your PC

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta

World Cup fever is in the air as offices all over Jakarta seem to slow down whenever the television beams live broadcasts from Korea and Japan. Productivity grinds to a halt, deadlines get pushed back and the usually quiet office space becomes a raucous arena for football fanatics cheering on their chosen teams. And the big question of the month is: How can I watch it from my desk?

Short of purchasing a 14-inch television set and lugging it to the office or getting those small handheld TV units which gives you excellent, albeit miniature viewing pleasure, World Cup fans can still watch the games live on their computer monitors.

World Cup 2002 is not "video-streamed" or transmitted over the Internet. International television broadcasters around the world have purchased the rights for their individual national markets. Some parties fear the lack of national boundaries online could eat up potential revenue from the regular national TV viewing audience.

A live Internet broadcast from Singapore could easily pre-empt any TV programming (or lack of it) in Jakarta thus robbing the local market of their viewers. This would also cause TV adverts to lose some of their effectiveness and exposure.

Also, video streaming is extremely bandwidth intensive and as we all know, bandwidth is expensive.

So, if the World Cup can't get on the computer, then make the computer go to the World Cup. With a TV Tuner.

TV Tuners are a small peripheral device plugged into your computer that captures and displays television signals to your screen. There are many types of TV tuners on the market today, ranging from internal to external, analog to digital. Digital tuners are used to view HDTV broadcasts, which are currently not available in Indonesia.

Internal tuners are attached to your Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slot inside your computer motherboard so some tricky installation is required. The new external ones can be simply plugged in via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port available on most motherboards and computer notebooks.

Although external tuners are ideal for portability (you can take it with you anywhere), generally the best viewing results are with the internal TV cards as USB devices are "slower" compared to those plugged directly into the PCI slot.

Depending on the make and model of the TV tuner, you will be able to see television in a small window on your computer screen or use the full size of your monitor. Check the maximum resolution capabilities of the TV card for displaying prior to purchase. As a general rule, the higher the resolution, the better the picture.

Some TV Tuners come with video capture software that allows you to record the broadcast on your PC. It's important to remember, however, a video that includes audio can rack up quite a lot of megabytes so spare some space on your hard drive. A video can be compressed to save space using a variety of video compression systems called codex. The few codexes' that are used today range from Microsoft's WMV format (Windows Media) to the popular MPEG codex. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages ranging from compression size to video resolution, so experiment first before making the final recording.

Most TV cards come with a video input plug, allowing you to transfer home movies from a video camera to your computer. With the proper video editing software, you could make an Academy Award winning documentary from your trip to Tanah Lot in Bali. Although it is extremely unlikely, you at least have the possibility.

With a TV Tuner, you will be able to watch television without actually buying one. TV Tuner cards range from about Rp 350,000 to over Rp 1 million, depending on the brand. Of course, watching TV on your computer is more expensive in terms of electricity as the standard PC uses over 250 watts compared to less then 70 watts for a 14-inch TV set. But if your building's circuit breakers can hold, then there will be no problem.

Most importantly of all, you can watch TV in the privacy of your desk, office or cubicle. Armed with a pair of miniature earphones and resizing the TV screen to a small window, no one will know that you are silently screaming support to your favorite team. And if anyone does find out, break open the popcorn and have a quick World Cup office party. It'll be great for morale!