[bonesmccoy]

I wonder if any of the new Windows Media Center PC's can hook directly to digital cable.

Hauppage has consistently innovated solutions to bring TV broadcast experiences to the digital desktop.

I'm sure that they have to be working on both digitalTV tuner cards for PCI slots and surround sound audio cards. I've not looked at Creative's website for a while, but the innovation in surround sound will translate to the ability to capture real world environments and project it to any room.

Picture this one: A high-resolution camera on the ground facing the Pyramids. 3 mic's pick up surrounding sound. The load is fed to a webserver. You've got the ability to basically look and hear at any point on earth with true sound reproduction around you.

[eddie willers]

What I would like and what I can afford are two very different things.

My monitor is a 6 year old 32" ProScan ...$ 800
6 y/o old Denon AVR 5600 receiver...$ 2800
4 Polk LS90 floor standing speakers....$ 800 each
Polk CS 350LS Center speaker...$ 400
Boston Acoustic THX sub....$ 1200
Mitsubishi HSU 760 SVHS...$600
Sony SACD/DVD...$ 300
Dish Network's PVR 501 and 7100 Dishplayer satellite receivers...around $ 500.

Keep in mind that I paid about 50% of these prices by collecting "points" and purchasing through salesman accomodation programs and that most were aquired 6 years ago. The price of DD receivers have plummeted since then. Though Denon's flagship AVR 5803 is $4300 their AVR 3803 is fantastic at $1300.

[July 4th]

I'm guessing the time when digital cable will go directly into the PC is a ways off at this point. The digital cable box is an addressable terminal with security, authorizations, etc. I'm guessing it's something the cable company doesn't want circumvented.

What I would see as more of a reality would be some kind of digital-out connector on the cable box to plug into the PC. But right now it's all academic, at least where I live. We have digital cable, but only on the channels not provided by analog cable. All of the analog channels are the ones I watch.