What's wrong with my QAM?

[Mormegil]

I've got an WinTV-HVR-1600.

I've got the analog working, and can tune a few ASTC channels using an OTA antenna. Whenever I try to scan, I get a No Channels error, check Signal.

I've pulled the cable line, and put it into the digital coax in on the card, but can't get any stations with the Clear QAM on GB-HVR (or WinTV for that matter).

I've got a digital cable box that works, so I'm pretty sure that digital signal (encrypted or unencrypted QAM is going through).

The area seems to have a whole lot of QAM channels according to the line up on Silicondust.com


At first I thought it was a filter blocking the Clear QAM, but since the cable box I got today works, it looks like digital signal is going through.


Could my WinTV card be defective? It's the correct model with QAM support (74041 or whatever). I've got the latest driver installed.



So, my theories


1) All QAM is encrypted. Wouldn't this give me signal, just black/encrypted?

2) QAM is filtered. Doubt this since digital Set Top Box works

3) Digital signal is transmitted using something else besides QAM that I don't know about, or all the channels are actually analog (doubt this since I've got 200+ channels, and I don't think they can all be analog).

4) WinTV-HVR-1600 is defective.

Here's a log of the Config files

Thanks

[whurlston]

Enable log flushing and post your logs again. Also, do you have a Motorola STB by chance? I can tell you how to check the encryption status of a channel if you do.

[Mormegil]

Enable log flushing and post your logs again. Also, do you have a Motorola STB by chance? I can tell you how to check the encryption status of a channel if you do.

Nope, it's a Motorola DCT2224


Here's the new log

[Mormegil]

Slight update.

I'm able to get some channels using WinTV when I do the All Countries Search.

Looking around this forum, I found a patch on the WinTV-HVR-1600 thread, and installed it ( replaced nativeutilities.dll and qam.ini). That didn't help. Though the patch predates the current release, so that may have been a mistake.


I want to try manually inputting the frequences into QAM.ini, but I can't figure them out from WinTV. All the physical channels seem to read as -1 in the source tab and 0.0 in the digital tab.

BTW: All the channels on WinTV are reading above 2000. I don't know if that's relevant.

[Mormegil]

Update: Got it working, and here's how for anybody else that might come up to this problem.


Apparently my QAM was coming in on non-standard channels.

1) Installed the Native Utilities patch (I don't know if this is necessary) from http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...qam&page=4
2) I did an All Countries search on WinTV (8 hours or so)
3) Went to channels and copied each frequency (in Hz) for the channels where "preset" was marked.
4) I edited the qam.ini file putting in each frequency (converting to khz, so throwing out the last three "0" from the WinTV number)
5) Deleted any extra channel / frequencies and adjusted the "0=133" to "0=" the new number of channels (I now had 95)
6) Follow regular procedures for setting up QAM in Config


After all that, I now get all the same SD channels PLUS CSPAN-2!

[carpeVideo]

The easiest way to do this is to open the Hauppauge database (its access) and grab the frequencies that it has found. I then paste them to excel and do a pivot. Then just create a qam.ini using these frequencies. It makes GBPVR's scan much faster -

[Mormegil]

The easiest way to do this is to open the Hauppauge database (its access) and grab the frequencies that it has found. I then paste them to excel and do a pivot. Then just create a qam.ini using these frequencies. It makes GBPVR's scan much faster -

Thanks! I'll remember that when the Cable Company decides to do the next QAM shuffle.

BTW: Any experience on how often this happens?

[kayak4ever]

I expect to have a HVR 1600 and a pvr150 which will amount to 2 analog tuners and 1 digital tuner. I receive digital cable from a set top box (STB) that unencrpts the digital channels over channel 71. Currently the cable is split before the STB so that I can record channels 1-71 without the STB on the pvr150. What I want be to able to do is to record 3 programs at once, with the two analog tuners connected to the cable without the STB and the digital tuner connected to the STB, using an Ir Blaster or some other device to change the channel on the STB so that the digital tuner card can record programs over channel 71 (the digital channels).

Is this possible? Can I have two cable connections to the computer that has the GBPVR program on it? I recall from other posts that all recording is done from the main computer so it is not possible to have a MVP connected to the ordinary cable and leave the main computer connected to the set top box.

If not, I assume that I would have to forgo recording any encrypted channels if I want to access all three tuners at once and don't want to buy\lease more STBs.

What happens if someone is watching digital cable directly on the TV and the digital tuner card sends an ir blaster signal to change the channel? Will the computer signal be able to change the channel when a living person has used the STB control to choose a channel previously?

My questions are in anticipation of getting a HVR1600 for Christmas. Any comments would be appreciated, including the answers to the questions I didn't think to ask!

[sub]

I expect to have a HVR 1600 and a pvr150 which will amount to 2 analog tuners and 1 digital tuner. I receive digital cable from a set top box (STB) that unencrpts the digital channels over channel 71. Currently the cable is split before the STB so that I can record channels 1-71 without the STB on the pvr150. What I want be to able to do is to record 3 programs at once, with the two analog tuners connected to the cable without the STB and the digital tuner connected to the STB, using an Ir Blaster or some other device to change the channel on the STB so that the digital tuner card can record programs over channel 71 (the digital channels).

Is this possible?

When you record from the STB with your HVR1600, it'll be using the analog tuner on the HVR1600. Your PVR150 would be available to record another analog channel. Your HVR1600's digital tuner would be to recording any OTA or QAM digital channels you add to your setup.

The digital tuner can tune digital ATSC channels via either your antenna (OTA) or digital cable (QAM). It is not able to receive an analog signal output by a set top box.

[kayak4ever]

Thank you. That clarifies a lot!