What is needed to watch Comcast with Windows Media Center?

[timswim78]

Disclaimer: I do not have a television in my house, so I am not up to date on the various cable technologies and what they mean.

My father has a PC with Windows 7 Home Premium, and he has Comcast cable television service. He wants to be able to watch and record Comcast programming with the built-in Windows Media Center. We connected a PCI Hauppauge 1600 tuner card with QAM, and WMC only detected the local stations. Did I configure the card incorrectly, or do we need some additional hardware. If it matters, his televisions have a Comcast box that "tunes" the channels in and sends a video signal to the TV. So, his TV's simply act as monitors.

 

[nsafreak]

Sounds like where your dad lives Comcast is broadcasting all of its channels on its digital QAM system and only the local channels are being broadcast in the clear. The only way to watch and record all of the programs is to descramble the channels so that the PC can record them. You have two options to do this. One is to get another cable box for the TV that the PC is hooked into, run the output from the cable box into the PC's tuner card and control the tuner using an IR blaster. This is going to be the least expensive option up front. The other option would be to get a TV Tuner that's CableCARD capable. For that you're looking at an ATi TV Tuner card with CableCARD support which typically runs around $250 then you'll have to pay whatever Comcast in your area wants for a CableCARD. There are other cards coming out from SiliconDust and other manufacturers but I haven't seen anything on pricing yet.

 

[erwos]

If you do decide to go the CableCard route, make sure to run the digital cable advisor (in the extras section of WMC) to make sure your setup is good to go with it.

 

[BornStar]

Now is a bad time to be getting into CableCards as there is a new tuner that will be released in another month (hopefully) that can tune 4 channels at the same time with only one CableCard rental and it'll do it for less than the cost of two ATI DCTs ($400).

http://www.cetoncorp.com/products.php

 

[erwos]

Or you can get the SiliconDust dual tuner for $250 in April. It'll be sweet, methinks.

 

[Dirigible]

MCE only detects the broadcast channels with my Comcast. However, after doublechecking with my tuner's software (dual tuner HDHomerun) it gets a lot more than that. I did some digging and found a list of channels/stations and used "guide tool" to connect the channels with the appropriate listings in MCE. I get all the normal cable stations (espn, discovery, etc.) in SD and the broadcast stations in SD and HD (so no ESPN in HD, sadly). No premium stations. But all in all, it's enough for me.

So doublecheck, do some digging, and you may get enough stations to keep your dad happy despite what MCE says.

 

[timswim78]

MCE only detects the broadcast channels with my Comcast. However, after doublechecking with my tuner's software (dual tuner HDHomerun) it gets a lot more than that. I did some digging and found a list of channels/stations and used "guide tool" to connect the channels with the appropriate listings in MCE. I get all the normal cable stations (espn, discovery, etc.) in SD and the broadcast stations in SD and HD (so no ESPN in HD, sadly). No premium stations. But all in all, it's enough for me.

So doublecheck, do some digging, and you may get enough stations to keep your dad happy despite what MCE says.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Dirigible - What tuner are you using, and is your Comcast like my father's (requires a box hooked up to each TV)?

 

[Dirigible]

I'm using the Silicon Dust HDHomerun dual tuner. http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16815327005 (Whoa! Used to be cheaper than that!)

We have digital Comcast so it has a box hooked up to the main TV and I think it's needed to get all the channels to which we've subscribed. We have another little box hooked up to another TV but that might just be because that's an analog TV. Don't know if a TV with a digital tuner would require it.

I do believe this is all a YMMV deal, and Comcast may have fewer or more channels available in different areas. In my case, the software for my tuner has a little thingy where I could see what other stuff came in.

I wish I could remember the web site that shows what number frequency (?) to use for each channel for your local comcast, but you should be able to find it with a search - I think it's the web site that provides listings used by the MCE DVR.

Here is the Guide Tool that enabled the channels not found by MCE but that the tuner picked up, and linked them to the listings http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool For example, on my Comcast tuner ESPN is channel 38, but in the Guide tool I needed to associate 83.8 with ESPN.

I know that's not real clear, but I don't really have time to make this post make more sense, and it should give you a search starting point. Good luck!

 

[Fallen Kell]

Or you can get the SiliconDust dual tuner for $250 in April. It'll be sweet, methinks.

A thumbs up to you... I agree with this. I am looking forward to when this tuner is available. My only question/concern is what restrictions will be placed on converting the shows to other formats (DRM, etc.,).

My Comcast has switched to full digital as well. However, I have been using a Hauppauge HD-PVR for my recordings which connects to the component output from the cable box and controls it through IR. As such I didn't even really notice that my other tuners had stopped working (I have it set to prefer the HD-PVR and don't have any time conflicts, so it has only been using that tuner). I am looking forward to the CableCard HDHomeRun.