Connect Dish to Windows Media Center

[atlastechtips]

Hello so I love windows media center however they don't have cable cards or stuff like that to my knowledge would it be possible to use WMC with dish network can I get rid of the dish overlays when changing a channel also. Thanks for the help!

[kid.lazer]

Absolutely not. There is no such thing as a standalone dish tuner for PCs, and even if there were, WMC has no provisions for that.

[jachin99]

If you setup WMC for video capture with your dish box then maybe. Not many people do this but it is an option to use both your cable box and WMC.

[stuartm]

Long ago I had WMC set up and running with DirecTV. You can't capture from HDMI because of content protection. To get around content protection the capture has to be from Analog outputs so that has to be available from your Satellite box.

[dkrom]

I had a setup with DishTV for years. Yes, you need to get a compatible capture card with an IR transmitter and can’t use HDMI. I used component for the best picture. The IR will change the channel on the box. One tip if you do this, you need to setup a timed recording on the box itself that runs for 24 hours on a channel so the box doesn’t go to sleep. Set the the timer to a time you wouldn’t be recording or else the channel will change on you during the recording. My time was at 3am or so. Good luck!

[dkm]

Back in the before-time, one used to be able to hook up satellite boxes via firewire. Pretty sure those aren't available anymore...

[jachin99]

If you find the right device then you will be able to strip content protection from the signal while preserving multi channel audio I believe. I looked into this a while back but I never set it up. You really need to be determined to make this work but I bet it's still possible

[stuartm]

Careful, discussion of removing DRM is not allowed on this forum. (as opposed to discussion of exploiting the "hole" that exists for analog content that does not contain DRM).