Hauppauge HVR-1800 Setup

[BamBam]

I’m setting up a new system, Pentium Duo with an HVR-1800 card. I’ve read all the posts I can find for QAM and the 1800 (and 1600) to make this work. So far I have had limited success. The 1800 card works well with the WinTV. Success with the QAM/WinTV combo depends a lot on the number of splitters that I have connected. This has been talked to death in the forums but I thought I’d add to it, line quality and the number of splitters does matter. I’ve found this true in any digital TV device. I’m still running my old GBPRR system so I have to share the wire for now but with 0 or 1 splitters, it works well and I get several good quality HD QAM sources with WinTV.

With 1.0.16 GBPVR, I have the analog channels working well using SchedulesDirect as the EPG source. My next goal is to get the QAM part working. I’ve tried all of the suggestions and patches that I could find in the forums. When I do the scan for digital channels, I find nothing.

Part of my problem is probably just not understanding how the digital half and dual tuner works. I have the 1800 analog half set up as a Direct Recording Plugindevice with the Board Number as “Capture Device #1” and (most of) the first 100 channels set up and working using SchedulesDirect as the EPG source. I say most of because not all of the first 100 channels are used by Insight here in Indiana. The digital half is configured as a second capture source as a “BDA Recording Plugin” and device type of “…1800MCE (QAM)” and Device Number “1”. This is where the questions start. Do I need to set up an EPG source for the QAM. I’ve tried it with SchDir and with None. If I use none I have to add at least one channel for the scan to work. Without a channel added, I get a message that my EPG source is not set up and the scan will not run. I’m not clear on how the digital mapping works, does it scan based on what is in the qam.xml file or what is in the Channels list or…….

I’ll stop for now. If I can get past this point, that may help. At least it will get me to the next question(s).

And I like the new interface. Makes GBPVR look more "grown up".

Thanks

[sub]

The digital half is configured as a second capture source as a “BDA Recording Plugin” and device type of “…1800MCE (QAM)” and Device Number “1”.

Yes, thats what you should do.

Do I need to set up an EPG source for the QAM. I’ve tried it with SchDir and with None. If I use none I have to add at least one channel for the scan to work. Without a channel added, I get a message that my EPG source is not set up and the scan will not run.

Yes, you'd need an set of channels that can be ultimately be mapped to. These could be real channel from SchedulesDirect or other EPG source, or if you're use 'None' then these channels may have been manually created with the 'Add' button.

I’m not clear on how the digital mapping works, does it scan based on what is in the qam.xml file or what is in the Channels list or…….

It scans the frequencies listed in qam.ini, and list any digital channels it finds. You then use the channel list on the left of the screen to map the digital channels found during the scan to EPG channels you've got listings for.

[BamBam]

Thanks sub. That helps.
I’m still working at trying to make the HVR-1800 receive QAM with GBPR. No luck yet. I’ve scanned with all of the different qam.ini files that have been suggested and even made up some of my own based on the frequencies that WinTV is reporting being used by the clear QAM channels. So far no luck, just a black box with no signal strength when I scan. I get plenty of channels on WinTV so I believe that the hardware is working. After going through the posts again I have to ask, has anybody gotten the HVR-1800 card to receive clear QAM with GBPVR yet?
In the qam.ini files. What do the three parameters mean. I figure the first is the frequency/1000, but the next zero and the incrementing number I’m not sure of. I’ve been leaving them alone so far.
I did a longg scan of the WinTV channels today. Took about 7 hours to go from ~50MHz up to ~997MHz in 150KHz steps. Found a lot of channels. WinTV does report the frequencies so they are available.
Guess I’m looking for things to try next.

[sub]

I dont think I've seen a single posted indicating anyone has got QAM working with the 1800.

Unfortunately I dont really know anything about this device, so I dont really have any good advice to offer.

In the qam.ini files. What do the three parameters mean. I figure the first is the frequency/1000, but the next zero and the incrementing number I’m not sure of. I’ve been leaving them alone so far.

Thes other two numbers arent used, so it doesnt matter what they're set to.