I am planning on upgrading my very ancient TV to an LCD TV, but I want to know if there's a way of routing TV broadcasts to my PC and record them to my hard drive. Then, when I want to watch the programs, I want to be able to watch them on my TV. I know could probably use the TV as a second monitor, and use PVR software to watch the programs on the TV/monitor, but I don't know if I would get the same quality doing it that way. How should I proceed?
You are correct with all of that. set it up so you go: Cable/Freeview box > PC > TV. You probly will see a loss in quality by routing it thru the PC as it would decode the signal as it comes in then re-encode it as it goes back out to the TV. You also wont be able to use the PC for a lot else when you are trying to watch TV at the same time. You may find a better option is to go with a stand alone HDD recorder...