pat You need a tv tuner in your pc for Windows or 3rd party software to be able to play your cable, satellite or AT&T U-verse tv. I've currently got a Hauppage WinTV HVR-1850 tuner in my pc. It worked with cable tv (before the anolog to digital switch that occurred a few month's ago). I just switched from Bright House cable, due to not wanting anything to do with Comcast. They're taking over Bright House sometime in 2015. I have a sister-in-law that works for Comcast and I've heard nothing but bad thing's about them. I just got DIRECTV last week. Their boxes only have analog cable & hdmi output on them. In order to get hdtv you need to use the hdmi output on the box to the tv tuner on your pc. Usually the tv tuners, also have their own software for atleast tv viewing, too. Hauppage uses software called WinTV, it doesn't have dvr in like Windows Media Center. I haven't tried it in about 1 1/2 year's so it may have changed. Either way you need some sort of tv tuner card to get tv on your pc.