How to set up a 2250?

[Nichodeamus]

Alright, so I entered everything into my bda.ini file. And I also added everything into my direct.ini file. And I installed that newer version of the NativeUtilities.dll file. Then I did a little bit of testing to see if I could recieve analog channels, and found that those seem to be working just fine. And after that I did a bit of testing to see if I could recieve QAM channels. And so far it seems to be working good.. However I'm having a little bit of an issue getting this xmltv utility I have to work, so at the moment my guide listings are sortof screwed. But quite a few channels DO seem to be recieving just fine, inside of the setup utility where I have to assign guide channels to scanned channels. So I think it's working now.

I'll see if I can get this or maybe another xmltv utility working and then I'll do some more extensive testing, and I'll let you know if I run into any issues.

Thankyou again, for all of the help.

[mvallevand]

Nichodeamus and sub thanks

Martin

[sub]

Alright, so I entered everything into my bda.ini file. And I also added everything into my direct.ini file. And I installed that newer version of the NativeUtilities.dll file. Then I did a little bit of testing to see if I could recieve analog channels, and found that those seem to be working just fine. And after that I did a bit of testing to see if I could recieve QAM channels. And so far it seems to be working good..

Great

However I'm having a little bit of an issue getting this xmltv utility I have to work, so at the moment my guide listings are sortof screwed. But quite a few channels DO seem to be recieving just fine, inside of the setup utility where I have to assign guide channels to scanned channels. So I think it's working now.

I'll see if I can get this or maybe another xmltv utility working and then I'll do some more extensive testing, and I'll let you know if I run into any issues.

Most north amercian users use Schedules Direct. Its a lot easier than fluffing around with xmltv utilities etc.

If you give a more concrete description though, someone might be able to tell you what is going wrong.

[Nichodeamus]

Well... I've had about a full day to mess around with trying to setup my clearQAM channels, and now I've finally decided to just give it up.

My tuner card, and your software are perfectly capable of recieving the channels alright, but trying to configure those channels so that they make any sort of sense or work at all with a schedule is more or less impossible.

First let me describe my situation... Apparently I am being sent about 60 channels from my cable company in ClearQAM format. However, those channels are not in ANY kind of order by channel numbers. They are just randomly mixed and scattered throughout about 300 signal numbers that turn up in the scan, with most of the signal numbers not actually carrying any channel data. And to make matters worse, apparently a number of the channels which I am being sent, are not even part of my normal digital cable service, because they don't exist anywhere that I can select on my settop box. Which means those channels are also not present in the schedules which I can download for my area. And MOST of the channels which ARE on my downloaded schedules, are not available in ClearQAM format.

So the end result of all that, is that I have a schedule which is about 70% useless, and a third of my channels which are not even in the schedule list, and that leaves only a small percentage of channels which have a listing in the schedule. And of those small percentage, they are completely randomly located in relation to the schedule's channel numbers.

Now NONE of that would really be that big of a problem IF your software had a truely versatile tool to match up signal channels with schedule channels and then be able to label and number them. But it doesn't. Instead it has this cheaply designed little window for matching them. Where the visible channel preview is smaller than an inch on my screen so I can't really see anything like a channel identifier symbol or logo. And channel names and numbers can NOT be edited at all unless you exit out of the matching window and go create a new channel. Then once you create one, the name and number can never be changed. And no channels can be moved anywhere in the list. And if any channel actually IS listed on a downloaded guide, then you just have to try to find it going by some little 4 letter identifyer from the guide, and never be able to change those useless little 4 letters for the channel's name.

In other words, with all of the restrictions your matching window places on me, it would take me weeks or more of work to actually set it up correctly, and most of that time would be spent doing things like deleting channels out of the list and remaking them, or downloading the schedule over and over again to work out which ones to delete and which ones to keep, and so on.

And I'm not going to do that, because it's not even remotely worth that much time and effort to me.

[whurlston]

sub has already stated that one of the things on his todo list is the channel remapping screen.

[mvallevand]

There is no standard for this but I find the easiest thing to do is go to

http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels

Enter your zip or postal code

and then you can easily match the channel number and the program numbers that show in the config program with the call sign.

Martin

[Nichodeamus]

If you would like a few design suggestions, for that channel setup window, here you go:

First of all, you should take the part where you can create and delete channels out of the previous config window, and put it together with the rest of the stuff in the matching window.

Then in the matching window, you should make the size of the visual preview either a lot larger, or better yet, resizable.. So that people can make it big enough to see something usefull with it.

And then finally, you should completely recode the way that channels are handled, so that the information on any one channel from a downloaded guide, is just an attachable data source, as well as the signal ID data from the card also being an attachable data source. And then make the actual channels themselves, completely editable. So that they can be moved up and down in the list, or given a different number, or have more added or deleted, or have the guide data moved from one channel to another, or change the name of a channel, ect.

If you had a matching tool like that, it would be VASTLY better for someone in my situation, trying to build a sensible channel list out of really chaotic data sources like I have.

[mvallevand]

BTW I dream of having your problem. My cable co doesn't even make local stations available in SD clear QAM let alone HD.

Martin

[Nichodeamus]

lol. I figured I was probably more lucky than most with the clearQAM channels I'm getting from comcast..

When I first ordered my card, I thought I would probably only get the local broadcast channels in ClearQAM, and that's about it. And I was only hoping that they would be in HD. That's actually why I got this 2250 card, because it's a hybrid analog and digital card, and I figured I'd probably mostly only be getting analog stations with it.

But it actually turns out that I get nearly 60 channels in ClearQAM, and it looks like about a third of those are in 1080i, including all of the local broadcast ones, plus some of the basic cable ones like Discovery and History and TBS.

[sub]

The reality is that clearQAM is probably always going to be a pain to set up in GB-PVR, and I'm ok with that. I dont have any way to test these types of transmissions and there are unique challenges that come with the QAM (like the channels names/numbers not usually being present in the broadcast etc), and with the channel lineups provided by the EPG sources not being a great match with the ClearQAM channels etc.

In DVB parts of the world, where channel numbers and names etc are usually available in the broadcast, the screen already tries to automap the EPG for you. In this screen when using a source with the DVB EPG you dont have to do mapping at all, and instead only have to tick a checkbox the channels you want to keep.

The changes I'm planning will mainly help people in the DVB parts of the world. If it can "work well" with DVB and OTA ATSC, and "at least work" for clear QAM then thats good enough for me. That said, there is one small improvement in the next release that you kind of requested above - if you click on the video window, it switches to filling the majority of the mapping screen.