TV card noob questions

[dakels]

I just hooked up a Hauppauge 1600 but I can't get it to work properly. I have no idea what I am doing.

Do I hook this up from cable box to card or directly to wall cable line? I tried both and neither work.

I have Comcast in NYC area. I think I have a digital cable box. Do I plug the cable line to the TV card via the analog line or the ATSC digital line or something different?

The instructions say:
"For Analog TV reception, you need an analog cable TV connection. If you have a digital cable set top box or a satellite box, the WinTV-HVR-1600 can connect via either Composite or S-Video inputs. Channel changing will be done using the IR blaster."

What... So I need to use the composite out of the cable box to the S video in on the TV Card? Won't I lose audio? Why can't I just use the coax out to the coax in on the TV card.

Problem is I don't see any channels. When I scan via the coax from the wall I get channel 5 and channel 6. When I scan from the coax coming form the cable box I get channel 3. My HD channels are in the 200-300 range and mixed above that.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[nenforcer]

I would try taking the cable box out of the equation because that is basically equivalent to what your Hauppage TV Tuner card is.

Try connecting directly from the wall to the ATSC / digital QAM coaxial input on your TV card.

Now I use Windows Media Center on Vista Ultimate with a different card. I'm assuming your using either that software or the included WinTV v6 application on XP or Vista.

If you scan and do not pickup ANY channels, standard def or HDTV then I suspect Comcast does not use QAM digital cable which your card supports. It is my experience that sometimes cable companies use some proprietary signalling of their own which REQUIRES the use of their Cable box. I believe CoX communications does this which is what I have. Switch to the analog cable input on your card and see if you get ANY channels.

If not then this is where it gets complex. You are correct you can use either the S-Video plus a stereo audio cable from you cable box to the Hauppage card or you can use the simpler but lower quality single coaxial cable. But you are forced to use the Comcast cable box and remote unless you can program what Hauppage gave you.

I hope this helps it sounds like you may have already tried these combinations.

I avoided the trouble of trying to get my cable to work on my computer. I just bought a cheap ATSC OTA HDTV antenna and plugged it into my digital input just to watch the local channels for free.

I had an old Hauppage analog tuner back in the day which I directly connect my wall outlet to. This new QAM / CableCard digital cable makes things more complex.

 

[dakels]

Thanks nenforcer. I think I tried the wall to the QAM digital port but I will try it again. Is there a site that lists what technology cable company uses what?

 

[ViRGE]

The 1600 can't tune encrypted QAM channels; this is the bulk of your digital cable service. The cable industry limits that feature (for computers anyhow) to a small number of pre-approved computers using the ATI OCUR device alongside heavy DRM. The best you'd be able to do if you want to directly tune digital is to tune any unencrypted QAM (ClearQAM) channels (this is just the nationals, if there are any). Otherwise your options are to tune just the analog channels, or to use the aforementioned card + cable box setup by having the box tune the channel, and then the card digitize the S-Video analog output of the box (this is SD, BTW). Also, the 1600 is kind of a lousy card, so it may have a hard time locking down any unencrypted QAM channels channels; my HDHomeRun does a far better job in that respect.

If you absolutely must have HDTV on your computer, look in to the Hauppauge HD PVR. It's an external box designed to hook up to your cable box and digitize the component output of said box; unlike composite and S-Video component can do HD, so this is the only solution where going through the analog hole won't strip you of your HD feeds.

 

[nenforcer]

Here is a forum post from 2005 for Comcast which is pretty good

http://www.highdefforum.com/showthread.php?t=9978

but here is the part I am concerned about

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/...index.php/t-19769.html

Which is where Comcast does something to the ATSC/QAM signal which FORCES you to use their cable box.

The cable companies websites are always rather vague when it comes to what technology they use but it is all fairly standardized so its pretty much QAM / CableCard plus whatever proprietary things each service provider does.

In fact, I think it is Comcast who was under scrutiny for degrading the quality of their digital broadcasts to save bandwidth space. They were purposefully sending a crappy signal.

Like I said, I avoided the trouble and just use my ATSC antenna for the free, local OTA broadcasts since my TV Tuner card does not even support QAM. If I had gotten that to work myself I could probably tell you exactly how to do it.

Make sure to try the analog input as well just to see if you get ANY channels! Then go from there.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: nenforcer
but here is the part I am concerned about

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/...index.php/t-19769.html

Which is where Comcast does something to the ATSC/QAM signal which FORCES you to use their cable box.

Yeah, they're encrypting them so that only authorized users can access the channels. This shouldn't come off as particularly surprising. You'll need a device that can decode them, either a cable box or another device using a CableCARD (TiVo, OCUR, etc).

 

[dakels]

I was playing with it some more. I plugged in the cable from wall -> cable box, cable box -> tuner card. I was able to get it to see the cable stations by putting the tuner card at channel 3, then changing channels with the cable box. The quality was not too bad after manually tuning in the frequency. I was able to change channels via the cable box albeit extremely slowly, like 1-2 seconds input lag. This allowed me to see all channels, I guess in effect it made my tuner card a portal to view whatever the cable box sent out, like a TV. As far as I know a standard TV will see my cable's signal and basic cable channels without a cable box (Up to channel 70 or something I think, over the 999 the cable box provides). I'm not sure why the tuner card will not.

I decided to wait till I get my new HD box tomorrow for my new 1080p LCD TV. At this point I would like to be able to run MythTV off my happauge 1600 TV card but I may only be able to see channels 1-125 at best correct? The HD stations for Comcast in my area start at 200 and go up. I would like to use my computer as a DVR, that was the point of buying this TVcard. As it stands I may be able to record something on channels 1-125 if I am lucky and non HD, is this correct?

On a side note: Comcast's compression is total garbage. Is this a standard problem in the industry or is Comcast specifically very bad for this situation? The compression lossy effects were visible on a non HD screen, I am almost scared to get my HD Box tomorrow and see how bad the compression is at 1080p. I will consider getting DirectTV or something if they are better.


Thanks for the responses so far.

On an even further tangent: All this crap is really confusing to someone who is at least fairly technically literate (me). I feel really bad for the non tech saavy people trying to filter through the rediculous world of HD. I'm sure it can be really easy and simple if you don't ask for much more then a screen and a cable box and pay everyone to hook it up for you. Others who may attempt to use X with Y may open this giant can of worms.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: dakels
I was playing with it some more. I plugged in the cable from wall -> cable box, cable box -> tuner card. I was able to get it to see the cable stations by putting the tuner card at channel 3, then changing channels with the cable box. The quality was not too bad after manually tuning in the frequency. I was able to change channels via the cable box albeit extremely slowly, like 1-2 seconds input lag. This allowed me to see all channels, I guess in effect it made my tuner card a portal to view whatever the cable box sent out, like a TV. As far as I know a standard TV will see my cable's signal and basic cable channels without a cable box (Up to channel 70 or something I think, over the 999 the cable box provides). I'm not sure why the tuner card will not.

I decided to wait till I get my new HD box tomorrow for my new 1080p LCD TV. At this point I would like to be able to run MythTV off my happauge 1600 TV card but I may only be able to see channels 1-125 at best correct? The HD stations for Comcast in my area start at 200 and go up. I would like to use my computer as a DVR, that was the point of buying this TVcard. As it stands I may be able to record something on channels 1-125 if I am lucky and non HD, is this correct?

On a side note: Comcast's compression is total garbage. Is this a standard problem in the industry or is Comcast specifically very bad for this situation? The compression lossy effects were visible on a non HD screen, I am almost scared to get my HD Box tomorrow and see how bad the compression is at 1080p. I will consider getting DirectTV or something if they are better.


Thanks for the responses so far.

On an even further tangent: All this crap is really confusing to someone who is at least fairly technically literate (me). I feel really bad for the non tech saavy people trying to filter through the rediculous world of HD. I'm sure it can be really easy and simple if you don't ask for much more then a screen and a cable box and pay everyone to hook it up for you. Others who may attempt to use X with Y may open this giant can of worms.

Basically what you're doing right now is having your TV card capture the SD analog output of your cable box; it's actually something a number of people do, but the results aren't great. If you went this way you'd definitely want to switch to using S-Video however, RF(cable) is the absolute worst way to do this. You'd be able to view and record anything your cable box could tune, but only in SD.

If you want to go this route for HD, you want the HD PVR and a cable box with component outputs. It will allow you to capture the HD output of your cable box via the cable box's component output, so you'll be able to see & record anything your cable box can tune, including HD channels. The trade-off is that there's a certain amount of quality loss going from digital->analog->digital, and the use of IR blasters to control your cable box means that tuning new channels is going to be slow. I also don't know if MythTV works with the HD PVR yet.

Compression is a pretty standard problem, although Comcast is a bit worse than others. Neither cable nor satellite have enough bandwidth on their systems for all of the HD channels they want to use, so something has to give. It may get better on the cable side if and when they switch to SDV. Notably, this isn't a problem with FIOS right now.

In response to an even further tangent: This stuff is ridiculously confusing. It actually started out making sense - cable would go digital, you could use a cable box or a digital tuner with a CableCARD to get everything. Then CableLabs got paranoid about who could use CableCARDs, then the cable companies decided they wanted to offer on-demand programming which requires bi-directional support, then the cable companies discovered that they needed to go SDV... And it all became a mess.