can the DCR-2650 tune ATSC?

[johnsonx42]

I want to get another tuner or two, and am also considering getting cable and channels that would require a cablecard. To cover all possibilities, I thought I'd just grab a DCR-2650.... but Hauppauge doesn't say anywhere that it can tune regular ATSC broadcast TV.

Does anyone know whether a DCR-2650 can tune ATSC channels from an antenna, or is it limited to QAM? Also, I've read in a couple of places that without a CableCard it will act as a ClearQAM tuner, but again Hauppauge makes no direct mention of this... can anyone confirm?

[soccerdad]

I am not sure about the ATSC, but I know mine will tune clear QAM without a cablecard. FWIW, if I had it to do over, I would get a 4 tuner Ceton unit instead of the two tuner DCR. I have 3 tuners now (with my 1800), but it would be nice sometimes to have more. The DCR has been very reliable. Of course all of my cable except the big 4 are flagged so i am stuck with WMC7.

Good luck!

[johnsonx42]

Thanks for the confirmation on ClearQAM...

Of course all of my cable except the big 4 are flagged so i am stuck with WMC7.

I was wondering about that too... so even the Basic Cable channels like TBS, USA, CNBC, Discovery, etc. are all flagged CopyOnce? I had been hoping (or perhaps kidding myself) that it would only be premium channels like HBO that would be flagged.

Maybe I need to re-consider this whole idea...

[donschjr]

I have comcast and am able to record and watch tbs, usa, discovery, speed, espn etc. with no problems including using comskip.

[BrettB]

I have comcast and am able to record and watch tbs, usa, discovery, speed, espn etc. with no problems including using comskip.

I also have Comcast/Xfinity and only the premiums (HBO, Showtime) are flagged copy-once.

[soccerdad]

I have Time Warner Cable and from what I have heard, they always only leave the big 4 clear across the US. I could be wrong though.

[johnsonx42]

disappointing... The cable in my area is time warner as well.

[johnsonx42]

well, for those dying of curiousity about what I ended up doing, I just ended up getting 20 megabit "turbo" internet on a promo that had broadcast cable at no extra charge. it got hooked up today, and I discovered that in my area Time Warner still does the basic cable tiers in analog, along with clearQAM for the broadcast channels. I also got a bit lucky: the filter they put on the line to block the analog channels I'm not supposed to get is a little off and I get USA, TBS and TVLand (two channels at the beginning of the restricted range, one at the end); along with WGN (which I am supposed to get), I've added a pretty decent handful of channels essentially for free since all I was really going for was the internet connection.