Trouble getting my channels

[emp626]

hello all,
so i just moved and switched to cable tv (mediacom). i have a htpc with a huppage 500mce. the channels i bought are 2-72, digital plus 178-391 and encore 401-451. it is SD no HD at all. i cannot get all the channels thru BTV. can anyone help me?
thanks

[jrandeck]

The Hauppauge 500 only records analog (NTSC) signals. You won't be able to record any digital channels with it.

What many people with analog cards and cable do is to run the S-Video output of their cable box to the tuner card. Then the cable box can tune the digital channels with the cable box, which outputs an analog signal over S-Video and the tuner can record it.

You can also get a tuner that records QAM, but you'll only get channels that your cable company doesn't encrypt (most people just get their local channels this way.)

There are other options like the HD-PVR but that still requires a cable box.

[emp626]

hello and thanks for the response.
well my cable box is so ancient that it does not have an s-vid connection. it only has coax and a d-sub. would a converter box slove this problem? and i still don't know how to get the channels above 78 to show up on the BTV guide.
thanks!

[jrandeck]

If you don't have S-video out, do you have an RCA composite video out jack? (generally the yellow one).

If you don't have either of those, you could still record from your cable box by running the output of your cable box to your capture card and telling BTV to always record from whatever channel your cable box sends out (the channel you need to tune your TV to when using the cable box.) The biggest issues with that is that you can't use the second tuner in the PVR 500 because it only has one coax input.

There are other options, but they get kind of Rube-Goldbergian, such as running the cable box output to a VCR or something and using composite/svideo output from that.

I haven't seen a d-sub output on a cable box. Is it 15 pin VGA? If that's the case then you might be able to get a splitter for that, but I think if I were in your shoes I'd try and get a different cable box from the cable company.

As for trying to get the right channels from the guide, I think it's just a matter of selecting the right lineup from the list. Try going to SnapStream.Net :: Home and check the different lineups to see what matches what you get.

[lsilvest]

I believe all cable companies are now required to give you a digital box - I know Comcast will give you 2 free (that was mandated by the FCC a while ago).

[hcm2009]

Originally Posted by lsilvest

I believe all cable companies are now required to give you a digital box - I know Comcast will give you 2 free (that was mandated by the FCC a while ago).

Hi all!
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.