device setup - no channels found

[honeypotGlen]

Thank you to all for the feedback. I'll give these suggestions a try, and let you know the result. If I can atleast get WinTV working for Christmas, that will be good enough.

Everyone enjoy your holiday, however you celebrate it!

John

[Reddwarf]

yes, you do. Softpvr is required for ALL use of analog capture devices with npvr, hardware encoded or not.

Actually, you only need the mux filter if the card has a HW encoder.

[johnsonx42]

Actually, you only need the mux filter if the card has a HW encoder.

which is part of SoftPVR; the distinction is only relevant to the advanced user extracting and registering the required files by hand (and even then, why bother skipping the encoders? does their presence offend in some way?).

[Reddwarf]

which is part of SoftPVR; the distinction is only relevant to the advanced user extracting and registering the required files by hand (and even then, why bother skipping the encoders? does their presence offend in some way?).

Touchy??

[honeypotGlen]

Update:

Now I'm having trouble with my internet connection, and getting the Hauppauge to recognize any channels. I verified the cable company uses RG-6 75Ohm quad-shield coax. There is a 1-2 splitter on the cable entering the house (5-1000MHz, 3.6dB). One side goes to digital voice, and the other is shared by internet and digital TV. There is at least least 1 more 1-2 splitter in the ceiling splitting the internet and TV. I believe this means only about 1/4 of the original signal strength is going to the PC where I have the internet access and the tuner card. From the PC I enter 192.168.100.1 in the web browser, and the cable company modem reports upstream power of about 53dBmV and downstream power level -11dBmV with SNR about 36dB. If I connect the cable from the street directly to the modem with a 50 foot RG-6 cable, the downstream power level improves to -2.1dBmV. Am I correct to interpret this to mean I have too many splitters in the cable?

Should 1/2 the original signal strength be allocated to digit voice?

What does anyone think about changing the first splitter to be 1-3; one for digital voice, one for internet, and the third to be split for 2-3 TV's?

My TV and PC is 50-60 feet from where the cable enters the house. Should I use a signal amplifier? I read that they are usually unnecessary.

What are the target and acceptable values for downstream power level and SNR for internet and TV?

The cable company put a Regal Rila-6 attenuator between the end of the coax and the modem. When I remove the attenuator, the downstream power level improves from -11dBmV to about -5dBmV. Am I correct to want to remove the attenuator? Why is it there in the first place?

Thank you for any help.

John

[Reddwarf]

The attenuator is there to prevent the signal to be too strong, which can be worse that a weak signal, but if the signal is weakend by splitters it might not be needed. With regard to splitters it is always better to have few/one splitter with many outputs than several splitters in series, since a splitter steal much of the signal level. I seem to remember that standard coax imposes a 50% drop in signal strength for every 10 meters (about 33ft) so you'll have to take that into consideration too. Since you have internet via the same cable an amplifier is not a good idea unless it is a twoway amplifier, most common RF amplifiers works only one way, and that means it would be blocking your return signal from the modem to your ISP.

[mvallevand]

I think the attenuator might be there to isolate the cable modem segment from the cable segment, mine one 192.168.100.1 too shows SNR 38db 4dbV so I think your -11dbV is low. I know if there is pixelization on channels on my digital STB the problems start when about -10dbV. We are instructed by the cableco to never split the cable modem feed from their box as it needed full strength. If you split, you should split before going to the cable box.

Martin

[honeypotGlen]

I think the downstream power level was likely tuned with the attenuator in the original setup, and a splitter was inserted later that threw the downstream power level off. Simply removing the attenuator may solve the problem.

The other thing I don't understand, is that the cable company has half of the signal strength split off to the digital voice modem (Arris TM502G), which apparently only handles phone, and the other half of the signal power is divided between the television and internet access. The Arris manual says the machine can handle internet in addition to voice, but the cable company only uses the voice section and has a second motor on the other line for internet.

I'm going to contact the cabe company to see why I can't eliminate the modem, and connect to the Arris instead. That way one of the 3.5dBmV outputs can be for the telephone and internet, and the other for cable TV's.

John