QAM Support in MCE 2005!!!

[Quasmo]

I've been waiting for this for a LOOOOOONG time. Apparently some company has created a device that streams HDTV shows over your network. What they have done is written a driver for it to trick MCE into thinking it's just a standard ATSC tuner. You have to remap your ATSC channels, but thats not a problem considering how much you can gain from QAM.

For those of you who don't understand.... QAM is a digital signal sent from your cable provider, and is not supported in Media Center Edition. ATSC is a signal from your antenna Over The Air. What this allows for is the ability to get all those channels sent by your cable provider and incorporate them into Media Center. It will eliminate drop outs. (It's a bit compressed though) This will up the amount of HD channels I can recieve by atleast 1000% (I get NBC, thats it, with QAM I get atleast 15)

Link to the product


HOORAY!!!

UPDATE Here are all the channels I get now:

INHD
INHD2
ESPN HD
ESPN HD2
ESPN News
*CSPAN 3
*Toon Disney
*Soapnet
Music HD
Fox HD
NBC HD
TNT HD
*CNN
*The Weather Channel
Discovery HD
ABC HD
*The Tube
*MyTV
CBS HD

Channels with stars are not HD.
1100% more HD!!!!! (I had only one before )

 

[Goosemaster]

interesting....

edit:1000%:Q

 

[mrSHEiK124]

YAY!

 

[SynthDude2001]

Wow, that's not a bad price at all for that. May have to look into it once I move to an area where HDTV reception is a realistic possibility

 

[Shawn]

That doesn't really help me any. I already have the Avermedia a180 which supports QAM, but media center doesn't.

 

[arod]

works in vista mce as well.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: arod
works in vista mce as well.

Am I missing something? Their page says Windows Medica Center support coming soon, as in its not there yet? Beta drivers/software or something?

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: arod
works in vista mce as well.

Am I missing something? Their page says Windows Medica Center support coming soon, as in its not there yet? Beta drivers/software or something?

I was about the same...I'd like to hear some firsthand experience with it. I haven't come across anyone who has used it at TGB, either.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Wow, that's not a bad price at all for that. May have to look into it once I move to an area where HDTV reception is a realistic possibility

That's what great about it. It doesn't use Over the air signals. It uses the signals right from your cable. I can only recieve one channel in HiDef OTA, but with this, I'll get every one of my local stations, plus more (Discovery HD and so forth).

Yes the device is in beta (Only one of the two tuners works)
TGB Link

I bought one this afternoon, and live really close to the shipper, so I'll let you know how well it works by next week.

 

[SampSon]

So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

 

[arod]

go in their forums... they have beta mce05 and vista drivers.

mine gets here monday. as stated above only one tuner works atm because the driver is still in beta (and they wanted to get the bugs out of one tuner) but within the next few days the developer said a new driver with dual tuner support would be out.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: SampSon
So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

No, that's what is so great about QAM, If you want an QAM HD tuner and don't have MCE, there are other cards that can be had for alot less, but this acutally works with Media Center, which schedules and records shows for you.

Cable providers are required to broadcast local channels over QAM, and you dont have to have a cable box to view them. Some channels are encrypted FYI.

 

[SampSon]

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon
So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

No, that's what is so great about QAM, If you want an QAM HD tuner and don't have MCE, there are other cards that can be had for alot less, but this acutally works with Media Center, which schedules and records shows for you.

Cable providers are required to broadcast local channels over QAM, and you dont have to have a cable box to view them. Some channels are encrypted FYI.

So I can take my MCE box, get this tuner and cancel my digital HD content?
I need to look into this.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Shawn
That doesn't really help me any. I already have the Avermedia a180 which supports QAM, but media center doesn't.

Exactly. I want to be able to use the existing hardware I have that already has QAM built into it.

 

[SLCentral]

Life is good!

 

[Steve]

Interesting...

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: SampSon

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon
So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

No, that's what is so great about QAM, If you want an QAM HD tuner and don't have MCE, there are other cards that can be had for alot less, but this acutally works with Media Center, which schedules and records shows for you.

Cable providers are required to broadcast local channels over QAM, and you dont have to have a cable box to view them. Some channels are encrypted FYI.

So I can take my MCE box, get this tuner and cancel my digital HD content?
I need to look into this.

That's kind of a gray area, see most cable providers offer more content than they stream over QAM. In a perfect world, we would have cable card support, for anyone who wants it, not people who want to spend >$2000 on a brand new certified vista PC. QAM is the red headed step child of Cable card, it doesn't offer all the channels of cable card, but it does offer more than OTA, with the reliability of Cablecard.

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon
So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

No, that's what is so great about QAM, If you want an QAM HD tuner and don't have MCE, there are other cards that can be had for alot less, but this acutally works with Media Center, which schedules and records shows for you.

Cable providers are required to broadcast local channels over QAM, and you dont have to have a cable box to view them. Some channels are encrypted FYI.

So I can take my MCE box, get this tuner and cancel my digital HD content?
I need to look into this.

That's kind of a gray area, see most cable providers offer more content than they stream over QAM. In a perfect world, we would have cable card support, for anyone who wants it, not people who want to spend >$2000 on a brand new certified vista PC. QAM is the red headed step child of Cable card, it doesn't offer all the channels of cable card, but it does offer more than OTA, with the reliability of Cablecard.

yup cablecard is really really locked down on vista (which sucks). not only can you only buy a new computer that has cablecard capability but you can only stream the recorded content to media center v2 extenders and there is no option to stream the content to webguide or orb as well as transcoding the content for your portable players.

but the big issue with qam is what channels are broadcast as open qam. generally only your local stations are not encrypted. so no recording espn/espn2 with this device.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Wow, that's not a bad price at all for that. May have to look into it once I move to an area where HDTV reception is a realistic possibility

That's what great about it. It doesn't use Over the air signals. It uses the signals right from your cable. I can only recieve one channel in HiDef OTA, but with this, I'll get every one of my local stations, plus more (Discovery HD and so forth).

I'm aware of what QAM is; in fact I used to have a PCI HDTV tuner that supported QAM - my problem is that my cable service provider (if you can call it that) here on campus carries no HD channels at all.

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Wow, that's not a bad price at all for that. May have to look into it once I move to an area where HDTV reception is a realistic possibility

That's what great about it. It doesn't use Over the air signals. It uses the signals right from your cable. I can only recieve one channel in HiDef OTA, but with this, I'll get every one of my local stations, plus more (Discovery HD and so forth).

I'm aware of what QAM is; in fact I used to have a PCI HDTV tuner that supported QAM - my problem is that my cable service provider (if you can call it that) here on campus carries no HD channels at all.

thats what you get for living on campus (esp since they dropped suddenlink for that lame campus tv network)

 

[Homerboy]

ok all you QAM know-it-alls, why can't I get QAM channels on my new TV?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=38&threadid=2004720&enterthread=y

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
ok all you QAM know-it-alls, why can't I get QAM channels on my new TV?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=38&threadid=2004720&enterthread=y

Because you are doing it wrong.

 

[JackBurton]

Cool.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: arod

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: SampSon
So do I still have to pay for HD content from my digital cable provider?

No, that's what is so great about QAM, If you want an QAM HD tuner and don't have MCE, there are other cards that can be had for alot less, but this acutally works with Media Center, which schedules and records shows for you.

Cable providers are required to broadcast local channels over QAM, and you dont have to have a cable box to view them. Some channels are encrypted FYI.

So I can take my MCE box, get this tuner and cancel my digital HD content?
I need to look into this.

That's kind of a gray area, see most cable providers offer more content than they stream over QAM. In a perfect world, we would have cable card support, for anyone who wants it, not people who want to spend >$2000 on a brand new certified vista PC. QAM is the red headed step child of Cable card, it doesn't offer all the channels of cable card, but it does offer more than OTA, with the reliability of Cablecard.

yup cablecard is really really locked down on vista (which sucks). not only can you only buy a new computer that has cablecard capability but you can only stream the recorded content to media center v2 extenders and there is no option to stream the content to webguide or orb as well as transcoding the content for your portable players.

but the big issue with qam is what channels are broadcast as open qam. generally only your local stations are not encrypted. so no recording espn/espn2 with this device.

Fortunately I live in Savannah, and down here they are the laziest muther f'rs you'll ever meet. NOTHING is encrypted down here. My friend has a QAM TV, and he sees people PPV, and on demand channels being streamed. I made sure there where enough channels unencrypted before I bit the bullet and got this device.

 

[Jawo]

Let me know how it works!!! OTA doesn't work for me very well....(only get PBS x4)