ATSC and cable

[mkenyon2]

I have cable here in the US. If I get an ATSC card, would it work with cable?

Do ATSC receivers/tuners work with standard antennae and transmissions?

[Anthony]

ATSC is for over-the-air (antenna) signals only.

To receive digital stations from your cable company, you'll need a tuner card that supports QAM digital. These include the Hauppauge HVR-1600, the OnAir GT, the HDHomeRun, etc. Please note you will only be able to tune in stations that are NOT encrypted. This is typically limited to the major broadcast stations in your area.

I have the HVR-1600, which has two tuners, letting you tune both analog (antenna or cable) and digital (antenna or cable) stations at the same time.

I have Comcast cable and there's apparently something strange with Comcast that causes problems with QAM tuner cards. I've tried two different cards and neither would record reliably from cable. So, I use the digital tuner with an antenna to pick up my local digital stations in Hi-Def. I use the analog tuner to pick up the few cable channels I can't get over the air. Works great.

Anthony

[mkenyon2]

Hmm... I have Comcast.

So, if I understand you correctly, the 1600 has two tuners, but one is analog and one is digital (ATSC and/or QAM). Looking at the specs on Hauppauge's site, that seems to be the case for this and the 1800.

What would be the benefits of QAM digital? It sounds like it's easier for them to restrict/encrypt, and that it is different from the regular cable I have coming into my house that I can plug into my TV/VCR/Analog tuner card/whatever.

Also, have you ever recorded NTSC and QAM at the same time? What's the performance like? How does the card seem to handle it?

I currently have two separate analog tuners. I could upgrade one of them, but I'd like to hold off until I can take advantage of the Digital side of it.

[pcostanza]

ATSC is for over-the-air (antenna) signals only.

I have Comcast cable and there's apparently something strange with Comcast that causes problems with QAM tuner cards. I've tried two different cards and neither would record reliably from cable. So, I use the digital tuner with an antenna to pick up my local digital stations in Hi-Def. I use the analog tuner to pick up the few cable channels I can't get over the air. Works great.

Anthony

I just purchased this card recently to play with and am not yet ready to give it a 2 thumbs up yet. I've not tried QAM yet and don't expect much from Cox either but the very poor WinTV software actually picks up more ATSC stations than GBPVR did on the first scan. Vista Media Center picks up even less.
I'm thinking about putting this in another system and getting one of the PCIe cards since slots are a problem for me.

[Anthony]

> if I understand you correctly, the 1600 has two tuners,
> but one is analog and one is digital (ATSC and/or QAM).

Correct. Though you can only connect the digital tuner to an antenna (ATSC) or cable (QAM). You can't do both digital options with the one card.

> seems to be the case for this and the 1800.

As far as I know, the two cards are identical except the 1600 is a regular PCI card, and the 1800 is a PCI express (PCIe) card.

> What would be the benefits of QAM digital?

It's just the method they use to send digital signals over the cable feed (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, I believe). Those signals can be free (not encrypted) or encrypted. You can only view the unencrypted channels with the HVR-1600 (or any QAM tuner for that matter).

Generally the only free unencrypted stations are the ones you would get locally with an antenna. I think I had a couple of additional local government and school channels, and maybe a spanish station or two, but that's about it.

> have you ever recorded NTSC and QAM at the same time?

Yes, frequently. In fact, I have two HVR-1600 cards in my computer and often record four channels at once (two analog, two digital). The HVR-1600 has a hardware encoder built-in for the analog side, and digital is already encoded, so performance is not really an issue.

> I currently have two separate analog tuners.

I used to have a PVR-550, with dual analog tuners. I actually thought the analog side was a bit better on the 550, but digital really blows analog away. Once you see shows in HD, old analog TV seems terrible. Even standard definition digital has a perfect picture if you have a good signal.

pcostanza,

> I've not tried QAM yet and don't expect much from Cox either

I could "view" digital cable (QAM) fine, I just couldn't record. It's like the horizontal and vertical sync signals are lost or something. The sound is fine, but the video is just a scrambled mess of random pixels. It's completely different than the usual dropouts caused by low signals. I contacted Hauppauge about it and they said they were aware of the problem with Comcast cable. But, they didn't really say what the problem was, and I had similar results when I tried an OnAir GT tuner. My Samsung TV has no problems with the cable, so I think it's just some weakness with these tuner cards. On the other hand, many others say QAM works fine for them, so who knows. Give it a try. If it works, great. If not, don't waste any more time with it.

> the very poor WinTV software actually picks up more
> ATSC stations than GBPVR did on the first scan.

It could be a signal issue. The channel strength may have been too weak to get a lock when it got to that part of the scan.

I battled with random problems for months, using a desktop antenna and a DB2 style antenna in the attic. When I finally mounted the DB2 outside, all my signal issues went away and I've had a perfect picture on every channel since then. There's just too much interference from the wiring and building materials for an indoor antenna to pick up a good signal (it could be perfect one day, horrible the next).

Anthony