TV QAM: Video ++, Audio so-so, some places

[qamrider]

Sony KDS-60A2000 Grand WEGA 60" SXRD
ATSC/NTSC hybrid with Clear QAM (8 VSB)
built Aug 2006, purchased Dec 2006

Connected to TimeWarner cable, Mid-Atlantic area. When the KDS finishes a scan, after 45 minutes, I get 71 analog channels and 492 digital channels. WOW!!!!!

I thought the scan lied to me ...
Until I discovered there were a bazillion audio-only, "no-signal", and "on"-and-unused channels. It took me hours to de-select what I considered rejects.
Until I did find hidden gems, movie channels, which were de-selected for me ... well, needless to say, I enabled all I could ee:

I have lots and lots of channels. My KDS can tell me the status of each channel and report if it is NTSC, 720P, or 1080i.

This is my very first experience with all things QAM. So please bear with me and don't beat me up <smile>.

I do have a strong signal coming from my cable. For each channel that QAM detects and thinks is "clear" should I expect the Video and Audio to be perfect, or nearly so?

What I am experiencing is perfect Video and poor Audio ... "stutters" or "chatters", for lack of better terms. Or, I will experience perfect Audio and pixelating Video. Or, a channel with have a mix of both!

Are my problems a result of some bad engineering of the QAM in my KDS? Is this just "normal" for QAM and I'm expecting too much? Or, would I have better results using a PC and decode QAM there and pass that along to the KDS via HDMI?

I better quit before I drive you nuts and me even more nuts. Anyway, just a little old man wanting to watch some TV and having too much time on his hands. Seriously though, I'd appreciate any insight you can share on all of this ........

[whurlston]

The KDS should have an excellent QAM tuner in it. I suspect that your signal may either be a little too low or slightly overdriven. If you have an amplifier on your cable, try using a two or three way splitter just before the TV. If not, try adding one. Tuning QAM usually requires a slightly higher signal than OTA. 90% signal strength is sufficient for any QAM tuner in my experience. Some work with a little less.

[qamrider]

whurlston:

Oh, there was a piece of information I left off in my previous post. One might ask how is it that I'm just now trying QAM since I bought the KDS in Dec 2006? Well, I didn't know about QAM and just moved my cable box output from my old TV over to the KDS and there I was, totally "in the dark" about QAM. Once I heard about QAM I jerked the cable box out and ...

And, back to the future. So while I thought I had good signal strength I probably made a bad assumption because of the cable box output to the KDS. If I guess correctly, I would surmise that the cable box was attenuating and/or boosting signal strength output to the KDS for me.

Since the KDS wants to always use QAM, and you can't turn it off, I substituted a TV, without QAM and without the cable box, and it was evident that there was insufficient signal strength across all channels ... not much, but there nonetheless. Kudos for the cable box taking care of that for me in the first place, before I discovered QAM.

Sooooo, if I get signal strength up to par, and have a happy QAM, I should be able to have great video and great audio then.

Ok. So, if QAM is tuned right you have arrived at "clear" QAM.

With "clear" QAM then you see all unencrypted channels and all encrypted and/or partial encrypted channels are just not there then??

[whurlston]

Correct. The TV should then only enable the channels that are unencrypted.

[qamrider]

whurlston:

Sorry it takes so long for me to reply ... I'm all over the place reading about QAM.

Now ... I believe I have a good understanding of QAM, so far as it goes with my KDS. And it is a given that signal strength is key for QAM to work correctly.

What I now lack is any sort of channel guide, etc. Now I think I might like to build a PVR using GB-PVR.

I can build a PC something like: A really fast AMD CPU with a fast bus, 4GB memory, OS/PB-PVR [1-disk], recorded material [6-disk RAID-0 array for really fast writes (I can take the hit if I loose a disk)] and having HDMI output for my KDS, a 1GB Ethernet interface, and all the other parts, nuts and bolts.

From what I've read I'd like to use the Silicondust's HD Homerun device.

What I want to do is configure both HDHR tuners for QAM. My understanding is that the HDHR contains two completely separate tuners capable of simultaneous streams, that way you could watch or record a program -and- record another program - at the same time.

Whew, supposing that I'm still in the ballpark by now, again from what I've read, it also appears that a second HDHR, for a total of four independent tuners, can be used and you could then watch or record a program, and record three others - at the same time.

I have read that the HDHR does not have hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 encoding? Too bad. I hope the HDHR is updated into an HDHR??? with hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 encoding.

What sort of mess would this be to resolve all the tuners .... define duplicate tables, one for each tuner?

Anyway, is my understanding of using dual HDHR's correct and is all this possible with PB-PVR?

[sub]

have read that the HDHR does not have hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 encoding? Too bad. I hope the HDHR is updated into an HDHR??? with hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 encoding.

You dont need to have hardware MPEG2 encoding on digital devices since the signal is encoded by the broadcaster prior to transmission. Digital devices just record the original MPEG2 broadcast stream to disk.

[qamrider]

sub:

Hey! Thanks for the MPEG-2 information ... the more -good- information, the better.

---------------------------------
Restating some previous questions:

Assuming that 2 HDHR's can be used and that all 4 tuners are mutually exclusive .....

You'd have to set up identical tuner tables, one for each tuner.
You'd have to set up an identical channel guide for each tuner

And, somehow PB-PVR can simply make sense of responding to a request without having to specify which tuner/channel guide combination to honor any one request. Does this make sense? Does to me, maybe someone could state it more eloquently.

Anyway, is my understanding of using dual HDHR's correct and is all this possible with PB-PVR?

[whurlston]

That's correct. My cable signal is a little over-amped going to my HDHR location. I then use a 4-way splitter to go to each tuner (2 HDHRs = 4 tuners) and the splitter drops the signal to an acceptable range.

[qamrider]

whurlston, sub:

Well, ok then, I'll be off and get my machine put together, buy a couple HDHR's, install GB-PVR, and tune up the whole thing up.

Putting all this together and playing with it will take me some time and my final results will be thoroughly blueprinted.

Anyway, folks, I will be quiet now and post my results in the future, until then ... thanks to all the readers, and especially the posters.

Kindly, qamrider.