Comcast Digital

[Ted the Penguin]

Hey, I don't understand something. So I looked up the Motorola DCT-700. All it has for outputs are RF and composite. Aren't those the 2 lowest quality ways to get a signal from an STB to the TV. If this is a digital tuner, then you'd think they would have S-Video or Component.

they should:p but they dont, and digital doesnt necessarily mean an increase in quality... purists will say that it decreases quality. but that is neither here no there, and he is getting a really really small box, that has to count for something... doesnt it?

Anyway, I to answer one of your questions, Smoker: I used to be on Comcast (before our area switched to Time/Warner). I had a 4 way splitter BEFORE I got the the cable box and ran one to the digital STB, and 3 to my PVR150's/MAUI.

This allowed me to have 3 capture cards able to tune the analog channels 4-100.

Additionally, I ran (in my case s-video, but you could do this with composite) out of my STB and into one of the PVR150's. I set up a separate capture source, TV Listings, ir blaster, etc - this will allow you to record all of the output from your STB and change channels.

You have have to be careful not to schedule recordings via RF and Composite on the same card at the same time. It might require you to "split" your listings by card. (Not that difficult to do, but a PITA to setup)

ok, so actually I have talked (if you call exchanging messages on a forum talking) with sub about that, and you can actually set it up so it works fine, without much trouble.

you will have to set up your analog capture source, make sure they are different devices, (i.e. #1 and #2)... make sure you know which card is which device #

then you have to set up your digital capture source, with the IR blaster for channel changing, and the source as composite input of one of the tuners (like the one you hook it up to), you will pick the tuner by selecting its device number. by doing this you will ensure that GB-PVR wont try to use the same card twice at one time.

now EPG, you can actually use the same EPG source for all your capture sources but then you can disable channels for that specific capture source, so for the analog ones you would uncheck all the digital channels, for the digital source you would unselect all the analog channels. it might take a few minutes, but its easier than maintaining two zap2it accounts

hope this helps,
good luck

[PixelatedFooL]

Recently two boards of the HVR-1600 have been enabled to tune QAM via the new beta drivers. I have one of those and so far I'm able to get all my local HD stations and a couple more, but not all the channels that I get on my TV. Beta indeed. Perhaps its the software that refuses to tune those channels. Once the new version of GBPVR comes out, I'm hoping I can start using the QAM with as much ease as using an antenna and analog.

The best way to see if you need a STB is to ask ask someone in the area who only uses a QAM tuner in the television. I have Comcast and only pay for the limited basic service, but I get all the digital channels in the "preferred" package via the QAM tuner in my TV. This includes all the locals in HD, except the My Network (useless). Of course the amount of channels you get will depend on the area, so check out avsforum for local reception info. They have a buncha people who refuse to use/pay for STBs when their TV can do all the work. The only drawback to QAM channels is that they're not nicely numbered.

[flyswatta]

now EPG, you can actually use the same EPG source for all your capture sources but then you can disable channels for that specific capture source, so for the analog ones you would uncheck all the digital channels, for the digital source you would unselect all the analog channels. it might take a few minutes, but its easier than maintaining two zap2it accounts

hope this helps,
good luck

That does work, and it's the easier part of my crazy channel lineup setup. I set up my OTA HD STB and my Twinhan OTA HD card this way - My zap2it listings have the locals in both analog & digital. I unselected the analog channels for the STB, (which will show the Digital channels in the listing - ie KTVTD) and for the twinhan card, unselected the digital channels ( which will show the analog channel in the listing - ie KTVT) and of course, mapped them approriately.

Now by selecting KTVTD, I'm using my OTA HD STB, and by selecting KTVT, I'm using my OTA HD Twinhan PCI card. Ted the Penguin is right - it only takes a few minutes to set up.

[Pioneer4x4]

I have quickly skimmed this thread, and I have a couple things to mention from my own experience with Concast, HD, GBPVR...
1)I have a Motorola 6xxx box (I forget the actual number, silver, not black) and I use the firewire port for gbpvr channel changing. My cable bill is well under $100 (but still too much) with the only pay channels being encore.

2)I can capture HD content from the firewire port on the box on most HD shows on channels 210-225 (networks sometimes, UHD, Discovery, and a couple others. Then I can convert down to DVD res and bitrate, and it looks like a store bought DVD.

3) I am starting to capture shows and convert them to WMV in native HD resolution, then I can watch them from my XBOX 360 like a HD VCR. The downside is it takes FOREVER to convert, and HD can be up to 10gig/hr. Converting a 24 episode took 24 hours. Now that the XBOX 360 supports some variant of mp4 video, I will try that as a more standard format.

I use the timmmore files as a starting point to interface with the cable box over firewire, and use CapDVHS to capture the .ts stream.

[qam1600]

1)I have a Motorola 6xxx box (I forget the actual number, silver, not black) and I use the firewire port for gbpvr channel changing.

2)I can capture HD content from the firewire port on the box on most HD shows on channels 210-225 (networks sometimes, UHD, Discovery, and a couple others. Then I can convert down to DVD res and bitrate, and it looks like a store bought DVD.

I use the timmmore files as a starting point to interface with the cable box over firewire, and use CapDVHS to capture the .ts stream.

Interesting! I just got a Motorola 6200 (DVR, but the DVR is disabled). I noticed it has Firewire ports, but I am using the IR Blaster and S-Video with my HVR-1600. I capture HD via QAM, but had no idea I could capture HD via firewire!?

What are using to convert HD to DVD format? I tried SUPER with Mencoder and FFMpeg, but neither encoder seems to work right.

[Pioneer4x4]

Interesting! I just got a Motorola 6200 (DVR, but the DVR is disabled). I noticed it has Firewire ports, but I am using the IR Blaster and S-Video with my HVR-1600. I capture HD via QAM, but had no idea I could capture HD via firewire!?

What are using to convert HD to DVD format? I tried SUPER with Mencoder and FFMpeg, but neither encoder seems to work right.

HD2DVD works with nice results, but you can't configure anything. I have been playing with tmpgenc enc xpress, but it was inverting the video. I have also used windows media encoder to convert to HD WMV and play over the xbox 360, amazing quality, but time consuming.

check out the timmmore stuff for motorola firewire. Once it is setup, you can use capdvhs to capture the .ts files of the actual HD data. VLC plays it back nice. When you capture a 1920x1080i stream, it is AMAZING the detail in it.

[dark_half]

You can also use the plugin that carpeVideo has made and incorporate firewire capture into GBPVR.

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/GraphRecorder

[Pioneer4x4]

I missed that one, I will definitely have to check it out! Then I could have some process auto kick off to re-encode it to mpg or wmv so I can watch it!

Any tips on using this via firewire?

[dark_half]

I used the example graph that is in the download to build on. There is an option to specify 2 graphs. The primary in my case was a graph that used the s-video on my 150mce and the second was the firewire graph. In the second graph you just specify the channels that use the graph. This allows me to use the box for both but appears as a single source to GBPVR so that it does not try to use it for more than a single recording at a time. I used the lastgraph created by GBPVR for the s-video graph and here is my firewire graph.

[Pioneer4x4]

OK, I definitely have to look into this. I don't think I have all the necessary components though. Thanks, I'm sure I will be posting more questions this weekend.