Trying to decide how to upgrade My HD Channels

[Bennyhill]

OK, I have been doing a lot of reading about HD and BTV since the new release of 4.6.1. I see the the HD is very complicated compared to SD when it comes to HTPC's.

I have a few questions I can't seem to find the answer to.(simple I hope)

1.
The new version says it supports the Hdhomerun qam device, does this mean it also supports the divco qam devices out of the box, or do I still need an addon?

2.
I understand that if I use a qam tuner It will only get the unencrypted channels. If I go ahead and get the HD Tuner box from my cableco, and hook it up via firewire and BTV Exterminator will that get ALL of the HD content, including the encrypted channels? (since the tuner box will decrypt them)

3.
Where is the best place to find what unecrypted qam channels my cableco is offering. I don't want to go to this trouble if I am only adding one or two channels of HD over my current HD-OTA.

Hope I am not being to much of a noob here, so thanks in advance.

Ben

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Bennyhill

The new version says it supports the Hdhomerun qam device, does this mean it also supports the divco qam devices out of the box, or do I still need an addon?

If it did support all the other cards, they would have mentionned it...

If I go ahead and get the HD Tuner box from my cableco, and hook it up via firewire and BTV Exterminator will that get ALL of the HD content, including the encrypted channels?

It still depends on what the cable company makes available, since Firewire comes with a flag to copy freely, once or never, and the PC can only record/play back the copy freely part...

Where is the best place to find what unecrypted qam channels my cableco is offering. I don't want to go to this trouble if I am only adding one or two channels of HD over my current HD-OTA.

See the following thread for suggestions:

Hdhomerun

[ccc1005]

Originally Posted by Bennyhill

2.
I understand that if I use a qam tuner It will only get the unencrypted channels. If I go ahead and get the HD Tuner box from my cableco, and hook it up via firewire and BTV Exterminator will that get ALL of the HD content, including the encrypted channels? (since the tuner box will decrypt them)

From the Cox forum at broadbandreports it appears only unencrypted digital can be copied from the DVR to the PC, so it seems like you would get the same number of channels with either option...

[tscales]

I bought an HDHomerun and it is sitting in the box. Brighthouse encrypts ALL HD channels, even locals.