How To Setup HRC Cable Tuning Hauppauge HVR-1250

[gby]

I have been working to setup up GBPVR using a Hauppauge HVR-1250 card to Comcast cable north of Boston. I have verified with Hauppauge's WinTV that the cable uses HRC frequencies. I have also used the GBPVR TuningAssistant and verified that indeed HRC frequencies are needed to tune in cable channels.

My problem is that I can not figure out how to get GBPVR set up or QAM channel scan to use HRC frequencies. So, I have no channels/no TV.

In my searching on this forum and the Wiki for a solution I came across reply made by serisman that said:

"For my setup, I also had to import HRC frequency overrides into my registry. You can find the registry file I used here:
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Support/...&SCATID=44"

The link gives a file that clearly puts a US cable HRC tuning set of frequencies into the registry. But, how to make GBPVR use them? Or, in other words, putting these numbers into the registry did not solve my problem.

If it matters I am on Vista32 Home Premium with SP1.

What step am I missing/how to make GBPVR use HRC cable tuning????

gby

[johnsonx42]

I'm a little confused, as I though HRC/IRC was an analog cable thing rather than digital, and I also thought the GBPVR Tuning Assistant was again related only to analog. However, on the assumption that you are talking about digital and need some sort of frequency override, methinks you need to look at Whulrston's QAM.ini Manager:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=38408

If you are in fact talking about analog, you can't use the HVR-1250 for analog in gb-pvr unless you install the Hauppauge SoftMCE software mpeg-2 encoder and add the appropriate entries to your direct.ini file (search the forum, I'm pretty sure I've seen said entries for the 1250)

[whurlston]

Here is an updated QAM.ini manager with the HRC requencies (some of the lower channels differ slightly from standard frequencies).

Let me know if it works for you and I'll update the file in the main download thread.

[gby]

johnsonx42,

Thanks for the response. I assume QAM digital reception is affected by cable or HRC cable frequencies. At least, in WinTV no QAM's are found using "Cable" and many are found with "Cable HRC" selected. I have found the posts on getting HVR-1250 analog to work via softMCE and the addition to the direct.ini. I had to do the latter to use the GBPVR Tuning Assistant.

whurlston,

Thanks for the file. I will try later tonight.

gby

[whurlston]

HRC would still affect digital channels because you still need to tune the physical channels on the correct frequency. HRC is simply an alternate frequency mapping for the physical channels.

Note that the qam.ini manager will only report if there is an error. If everything is successful, it will look like nothing was done. Make sure to "Run as Administrator" if you are using Vista.

[ElihuRozen]

I found after much trial and error that none of the qam.ini samples I could find would work for me. I ended up getting the values from WinTV, but also using TSReaderLite helped. (You can get TSReaderLite from here: http://www.tsreader.com/tsreader/index.html.) I was only interested in the HD versions of the local channels like WGBH, WBZ, WHDH, etc. I replaced the \Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\BDA\ATSC\qam.ini file with the following:

Code:

[CABTYPE]
1=All Countries
2=All Frequencies

[DVB]
0=5
1=528250,75,75
2=582250,84,84
3=588250,85,85
4=594250,86,86
5=600250,87,87

Then, when I scanned from config, it found the all the channels I wanted. When I run TSReaderLite, it lists slightly different frequencies: 84 is shown as 584 MHz, 85 as 590 Mhz, etc. When I run WinTV, it lists the frequencies this way: 84 is shown as 582250000, 85 is shown as 588250000, etc. So, you'll see that I dropped the last three 0's to get the values I used. If there is some other channel you want to include, just increase or decrease by 6000 as appriate for each channel number compared to what is listed above. If you wanted channel 83, use 576250. If you want channel 97, use 660250.

One of the things that Comcast does is redirect the channels. If you run TSReaderLite, you'll see that channel 87-1 is WFXT HD and get redirected as channel 25.1. That way, if you use the QAM tuner on your TV, you see it as 25.1 even though it is transmitted as 87-1. (WMUR HD still shows up as 75.89 even though you would think it would be 9.1.) I'm doing this for the 1600, but I assume the QAM tuner on the 1250 works the same. One more thing - other than the actual frequency, most of the information from WinTV seems useless. I found that once I got actual frequency values, TSReaderLite is better for finding stations.

[gby]

whurlston,

I tried your QAM.ini Manager 1002. I ran it from a temp directory before your advice in Vista to "Run as Administrator". I hit the top button on the right hand column labeled HRC Frequencies. It created a new QAM.ini in the local/temp directory. I then manually copied it to ..\gbpvr\bda\atsc.

This change fixed the digital/QAM signals just fine. The scan in Map Digital Channels to EPG now finds lots of QAM sources.

Thanks for your help.

Now all I need to figure out is how serisman got HRC frequencies going for the analog channels and I have it all.

gby

[whurlston]

whurlston,

I tried your QAM.ini Manager 1002. I ran it from a temp directory before your advice in Vista to "Run as Administrator". I hit the top button on the right hand column labeled HRC Frequencies. It created a new QAM.ini in the local/temp directory. I then manually copied it to ..\gbpvr\bda\atsc.

Same effect. Without using "Run as Administrator, it can't write to the Program Files folder but the manual copy works just as well. Glad it sorted you out.

Sorry, that I'm not sure about the analog side. The registry entry should take care of that. Not sure why it doesn't.

[carlisleg]

Please provide a link to the post for setting up HVR-1250 analog. Thanks

[johnsonx42]

Please provide a link to the post for setting up HVR-1250 analog. Thanks

I guess since I'm the one who mentioned it, I shall now confess that I don't actually see where anyone did in fact post the direct.ini entry for the 1250 using softmce. The current direct.ini file has entries for the 900, 950 and 4000, and I definitely have seen a post for the 950Q (no idea if it's any different than the 950).

I would guess that the entry for the 1250 would follow the same pattern. Install softmce, run filtercheck (from the gbpvr dir) and see if you can sort it out by comparing the known good entries to what you get from the filtercheck log.