How to Connect a Laptop to a Satellite Receiver

Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story. Learn more about our affiliate and product review process here.

Enjoy high quality digital video on your laptop by connecting your laptop computer to your satellite receiver. With just a USB TV tuner stick and some coaxial cable, you can enjoy your favorite movies, sports and television programming from your satellite receiver, on your laptop--you can even use your laptop's hard drive as a DVR to pause, record and rewind live television.

Advertisement

Step 1

Insert a the USB TV tuner's CD driver disk into your computer's CD/DVD-ROM drive. Follow the onscreen prompts to install the software.

Advertisement

Video of the Day

Step 2

Insert the TV tuner into an available USB port on your computer. After the computer auto-recognizes the "new hardware," follow the onscreen prompts to complete the installation of the TV tuner.

Advertisement

Step 3

Substitute a USB TV tuner for a PCMCIA card slot TV tuner if USB ports are limited. Simply insert the card into your laptop's PCMCIA card slot.

Advertisement

Step 4

Connect the laptop to the satellite receiver with a piece of coax cable. Connect one end of the cable to the coax port on the back of the TV tuner, and connect the other end of the cable to the port labeled "Coax Out" or "Sat Out" on the back of your satellite receiver.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Step 5

Open your media center application. Choose the "Settings" option, and under Settings choose "TV." Follow the wizard to setup "TV" and "Movie" options.

Video of the Day

Advertisement

Advertisement

references & resources