The days when folk owned HD displays but didn’t make much use of them, because of expensive peripherals or satellite subscription costs... could be over. Hauppauge Digital has created an HD TV tuner card that picks up free-to-air HD channels.

The Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-HD-S2 card plugs into a PCI slot on a PC and connects to a satellite dish, giving you access to HD satellite channels on your PC, such as BBC HD broadcasts. Although you still won’t get access to all Sky’s HD content, unless you have a subscription.

Hauppauge's HD card promises better quality telly, for a single fee.

The HD tuner, compatible with both DVB-S and DVB-S2, also enables content to be recorded onto a hard drive or external source in the H.264 format, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10. The card also supports Digital Satellite Equipment Control 1.0, a communication protocol that enables switching between up to four satellite sources.

Included in the pack is an infra-red remote control transmitter, which works in conjunction with the supplied IR remote control receiver.

Hauppauge’s HD tuner card does demand a fairly high-spec PC though, with a 3.2GHz CPU recommended alongside 1GB of memory.

The Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-HD-S2 card is available now for £99 ($200/€156).