comcast ditching analog this month in my area

[reefboy]

I'm a bit disappointed as I really have not heard any information from Comcast regarding this change over. But there was a newspaper article about it stating that Comcast was ditching analog and users would be required to get a box DTA within the next month?

So my question is this... I'm assuming all decrypting / converting from digital to anaolog is done with the DTA box on a per channel basis... or the user selects the channel to watch with the DTA tuner? So if that is the case I will need a channel changing device for GBPVR to continue to operate as it has...

What is a good performing channel changer that I should start purcahsing to get ready for the change over? Are there cheaper ones which operate consistently?

[psycik]

I've used a usb-uirt for a number of years with a Set Top Box over here in NZ. They're made by a dude in the States somewhere. They can receive and transmitt, and you can add a transmit extension if you need to.

Also on your Hauppauge does it have a blaster port?? It may support your DTA out of the box??

Thirdly the MCE remotes and blasters seem to be a popular choice.

[reefboy]

Thanks for the info. I'm also assuming that if I want to control two different DTA boxes I will need two USB UIRT's?

-S

[psycik]

not sure. There was some talk that it can handle two but how you would handle IR overspill (i.e a command expecting to go to one box being picked up but the other). Would help if different brand/make of box.

I'd never seen it in action though. If different brand then gbpvr can se set up to use a different config file for each box, since you have to teach it how to control the box.

[JonnyCam]

You can connect 2 different transmitters to the USBUIRT using a stereo 3.5 plug.

Then in the USBUIRT command list, you can reference a zone and have the 2 boxes away from each other.
So if the command sent is Z1 1 then it would blast the command 1 through the "left" connecion of the stereo jack, where Z2 1 could send it through the "right" connecion (I think you can define 3 zones, the 2 transmitters, plus the internal trnsmitter in the front of the uirt)

This only works if you use the non-native support (using a commandline program which the usbuirt seller will give you)

I use it this way to control an AV switch to fliick beween some diffeent sources using keyboard hotkeys instead of finding the remote.

EDIT: Actually you wouldn't have to have the boxes too far away from each other if you used transmitters which stick straight onto the IR eye of the converter box, like the ones which come with an MCE blaster. (http://www.smarthome.com/8170S/Mini-Stic...ers/p.aspx) but with those, you'd use a stereo plug to 2 mono sockets.

[dgeezer]

Check out this from over at SageTV. [URL="http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39223&highlight=comcast+digital"]Comcast thread.
[/URL] It looks like the converter box is just a qam tuner and that maybe the HDhomerun will work for all the channels that are now available on regular cable. Wouldn't that be great.

[pBS]

well i thought it was a real bock converter, but looks like not..just a regular qam tuner...basically one of those government-coupon type boxes, and not even that good...[no composite out even!}
should be able to find a atsc tuner that can also do qam for cheap...

but the main thing is this means they will un-encrypting basic cable finally!
tho it probably also means loss of some current clear qam hd channels...
and i'll bet none of the ch's it can get will be hd res.
but at least they'll be clear...

[reefboy]

Thanks guys... I love my GBPVR setup and my cheap $17 a month cable. The funny thing is I just added a PVR150 to my main computer which now has 2 tuners. I have another computer which has 1 tuner. So I now have 3 tuners. But, if I have to have comcast DTA boxes for each tuner I'm going back to 2 tuners. Hopefully it is all easier than I am anticipating. It just appears to be one more thing to go wrong / get out of sync / etc. If I could replace the older PVR cards with newer cards with QAM which would work I would even consider that over the DTA boxes. I guess time will tell when I hear something from Comcast.

Thanks again for the links above!