OTA HDTV recording via CABLE?

[AdventureGuide]

I just got a new TV with a digital atsc tuner in it. All of a sudden, I have more chanels to watch, and some of them are in HD! But here comes the big question; How do I record them on my DVR? I have a homebuilt system with a Dual-tuner Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 (PCI) card, and BeyondTV 4.6. It works fine, but I cannot get it to "see" the other chanels being broadcast.

I purchased the HVR-1600, but it does not "see" the new chanels, either, when connected to my cable. It DOES see the chanels as OTA, but with no antenna connected, it will not recieve the signals.

Is there any way to use the cable as the antenna? By the way, I am NOT recieveing digital cable. I only have "basic" cable and it is (supposedly) an analogue signal. (It works fine with my old, analogue-only tuners.)

Thanks for any suggestions.

[nrf]

if you poke around in the forums you will find that there is only one tuner BTV supports that can pick up those signals off of the cable - HDHomeRun. (You are looking for the ability to receive/record "clear QAM" signals)

While other cards are capable of receiving the signal, BTV seems to have some exuse why it cannot or will not support that capability.

Even with the HDHomeRun, there are some manual setup procedures that must be done.

Those who use linux for their PVR have lots more options.

[Deuce911]

Originally Posted by nrf

While other cards are capable of receiving the signal, BTV seems to have some exuse why it cannot or will not support that capability.

I love it when a person who does not understand the technical reasons for something always make wide sweeping statements like that above. I would suggest the original person who asked the question do some research on this board to understand the reasoning behind BTV not supporting QAM on other cards.

For that matter nrf should do the same.


Mike

[jkirk]

especially since that ain't what he asked anyways. he stated he has analog cable and wants to pick up ota broacasts using the cable as an antenna.

to the original poster i can't see you being able to do this since the coax cables are shielded. as such they should not pick up any ota channels. i am guessing your tv picked up some qam stations coming in on your cable line. if you want to see those channels you must have an hdhomerun (as has already been said) since no other tuner has the qam bda drivers that btv needs to address the channels.

now the reason why you are probably recieving the qam signals is because qam is unencrypted. unless the cable company puts a filter on your line you will receive them regardless it does not matter if you are subscribing to them or not. the encrypted channels are a different story tho you won't receive those unless you subscribe to them.

[AdventureGuide]

Originally Posted by jkirk

... i am guessing your tv picked up some qam stations coming in on your cable line. if you want to see those channels you must have an hdhomerun (as has already been said) since no other tuner has the qam bda drivers that btv needs to address the channels. ...

Thanks! That is the answer that I have been looking for.

Now let me ask another STUPID question: If I get the HDHomeRun, how does *IT* hook up to the computer? Does it all happen through the Cat5 cable? (The only pictures I can find of the HDHR show just two cable/antenna INPUTS, with no outputs to anything else.)

Thanks again for all that have helped. I appreciate it.

Cheers!

Jim

[Deuce911]

Originally Posted by AdventureGuide

Thanks! That is the answer that I have been looking for.

Now let me ask another STUPID question: If I get the HDHomeRun, how does *IT* hook up to the computer? Does it all happen through the Cat5 cable? (The only pictures I can find of the HDHR show just two cable/antenna INPUTS, with no outputs to anything else.)

Thanks again for all that have helped. I appreciate it.

Cheers!

Jim

Everything is done through the Network CAT5 cable.


Mike

[jhanan]

I have the exact problem nrf describes!! Finally a litte light on the subject. Why will my FusionHDTV not pick the same HD cable signals that my Sony XBR pick's up just fine without cable box? Where is the clear answers and plug and play support from Snapstream???

[nrf]

how about a solution NOT from snapstream? take a look at btvExterninator (search these forums for info). However, with that solution you are dependent upon the fusion application working properly, but some people have reported success.

I personally gave up on the windows environment because I didn't have money to buy yet more tuners and for the existing ones everyone is waiting of microsoft to set the leadership example on an open api for QAM tuning. I just moved my some of my HD tuners to Linux where it is doing great on MythDora 4.0, waiting for microsoft is like waiting for godot...

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by jhanan

I have the exact problem nrf describes!! Finally a litte light on the subject. Why will my FusionHDTV not pick the same HD cable signals that my Sony XBR pick's up just fine without cable box? Where is the clear answers and plug and play support from Snapstream???

Until the other HD card manufacturers provide BDA drivers, the HDHomeRun is the only HD tuner the BTV supports. Here is a good article:

http://blogs.snapstream.com/2007/05/...ream-beyond-tv

This is still in the early adapter stage, so there is no such thing as plug an play at this point of time.

[jkirk]

Originally Posted by jhanan

I have the exact problem nrf describes!! Finally a litte light on the subject. Why will my FusionHDTV not pick the same HD cable signals that my Sony XBR pick's up just fine without cable box? Where is the clear answers and plug and play support from Snapstream???

send emails and bug the tuner card manufacturer for bda-qam drivers. this is all that is holding us back. while they have qam drivers for their software none of the manufacturers are doing it in a standardized manner that snapstream can support. until they do the chances of seeing this in btv is >nil.

[nrf]

sorry, but the supported (OTA) cards already have BDA drivers. the underlying problem is there seems to be nothing in the BDA interface/API to allow QAM to be configured/utilized. That is what everyone is waiting for M to do - provide a standard way to do it. Fusion uses a non-BDA (proprietary) driver and wants big bucks to tell someone how to exercise it's QAM capabilities. Snapstream doesn't want to pay such a fee for only one manufacturer's product, doesn't want to embed company-specific code into their product, and Microsoft seems to have no interest in making this all happen in a standard way.

So everyone was waiting for Godot. However, the BtvExterninator folks have provided a plugin that will tell the fusion application to make a recording with QAM, and there seems to be some support for the HDHomerun in 4.6.1, so some progress has been made.

[soap box mode]Instead of waiting for the big M to come in and solve some standardization problem that helps them ?how?, why is there not some effort at defining a open standard for them to either support or counter-propose? [/soap box mode]

[jkirk]

Originally Posted by nrf

sorry, but the supported (OTA) cards already have BDA drivers. the underlying problem is there seems to be nothing in the BDA interface/API to allow QAM to be configured/utilized.------------ and there seems to be some support for the HDHomerun in 4.6.1, so some progress has been made.

the hdhomerun works because it HAS a qam-bda driver. if the other manufacturers did the same we would have qam on btv. i don't think the hdhomerun has native bda-qam drivers. iirc the qam is mapped through the standard bda driver.


btw i second the opinion that a new open standard should be created for qam. i just wonder who will step up to the plate to do it. if snapstream did it unilaterally then the chances are slim it would succeed.

[nrf]

interesting. I guess that explains the mapping that has to be set up. unfortunately this is just one more 'solution' that is specific to one hardware type. vendors tend to prefer more general solutions.

However, it occurs to me that one ought to be able to get other vendors to do similar mappings! For example, Fusion can see the OTA channel/subchannel numbers in the QAM stream, why can't it just do the mapping automatically?

[jkirk]

once i had an idea that imo would work but never recieved much feedback on it. what i believe snapstream should do (imo) is create their own interface for tuner input in btv. after they do that then create an "adapter" program to interface to btv that is open source so the hardware manufacturers can map their functions to what btv needs to show qam(or any other format signal). this way (if the programmers thought this out well enough) it should be possible to create interfaces for "any" new technology without modifying the base code of the interface.