Digital transition, need suggestions

[Davel23]

So Comcast in my area has finally decided to terminate their analog service, and are going exclusively digital. I can get a cable box and two "digital adapters" (whatever the hell those are) at no additional charge, so that's not a problem. What is a problem is adapting my current BTV setup to something that will work pretty much the same as it does now. I have a Happaugue 2250 and two cheapy Pinnacle USB SD tuners currently giving me four channel recording capability.

My first question: The 2250 has two dual tuners, allowing two SD signals, two HD signals, or one SD and one HD signal to be recorded simultaneously. The problem is it has only one coax input. Is there any way to route output from two cable devices back into the single input? If I set one cable box to output on channel 3 and the other on channel 2 then use a coax splitter in reverse, would that work? Or if I connect a single coax from the cable box could one tuner record the tuned signal from the box and the other record the clear-QAM local channels?

Second question: I have an IR blaster that came with the 2250, and I've seen the USB-UIRT recommended a few times, can one IR device control multiple boxes, or will I need one per box? More importantly, can BTV control multiple boxes through either one or more blasters?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[fmharr]

Originally Posted by Davel23

So Comcast in my area has finally decided to terminate their analog service, and are going exclusively digital. I can get a cable box and two "digital adapters" (whatever the hell those are) at no additional charge, so that's not a problem. What is a problem is adapting my current BTV setup to something that will work pretty much the same as it does now. I have a Happaugue 2250 and two cheapy Pinnacle USB SD tuners currently giving me four channel recording capability.

My first question: The 2250 has two dual tuners, allowing two SD signals, two HD signals, or one SD and one HD signal to be recorded simultaneously. The problem is it has only one coax input. Is there any way to route output from two cable devices back into the single input? If I set one cable box to output on channel 3 and the other on channel 2 then use a coax splitter in reverse, would that work? Or if I connect a single coax from the cable box could one tuner record the tuned signal from the box and the other record the clear-QAM local channels?

Second question: I have an IR blaster that came with the 2250, and I've seen the USB-UIRT recommended a few times, can one IR device control multiple boxes, or will I need one per box? More importantly, can BTV control multiple boxes through either one or more blasters?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Can't do that with the 2250. The only way is to use S-Video and the the expander that comes with the 2250 so that you can use 2 S-Video sources with the 2250. Of course this will be SD from the STB and not digital.

Are all the formally non encrypted channels now going to be encrypted? From what I understand, the local stations can't be encrypted by law (Digital SD versions).

The 2250 can record these non-encrypted QAM channels without any splitters or boxes (straight from the wall).

Don't know the capabilities of the built-in blaster, but the USB-UIRT can control multiple devices.

Mike

[Davel23]

Thanks for the reply. The local broadcast channels will continue to be unencrypted.

One question regarding the USB-UIRT. There seem to be two models, the difference being one has a 56 kHz IR sensor, what does that do that the model without it does not?

[fmharr]

Originally Posted by Davel23

Thanks for the reply. The local broadcast channels will continue to be unencrypted.

One question regarding the USB-UIRT. There seem to be two models, the difference being one has a 56 kHz IR sensor, what does that do that the model without it does not?

Don'nt know anything about the 56k option. It is an optional transmitter addon. Don't think it is necessary unless you have a 56k device you need to send commands to.

Mike

[lukasbradley]

Is the IR "Blaster" the only option for controlling the boxes? I wasn't happy with the responsiveness of it the last time I tried.

[Davel23]

I'm not certain, I haven't gotten them yet but I kind of doubt it. The cable box might have some other method of input, but the "digital adapters" almost certainly do not.

[tannebil]

A "digital adapter" is a set-top box without any decryption capability. Basically, it's just takes unencrypted QAM signals and converts them to analog. It's coax out but it's only going to have a signal on channel 3 or 4. I don't know about BTV, but a Tivo can control it with an IR-blaster.

Are you sure all the channels are going digital? When Comcast made the digital transition here (Pierce County, WA), the first 30 channels remained analog. So maybe it's not quite as bad as it appears.

I use an HD-HR and the digital conversion was actually a plus for me as a bunch of channels switched from encrypted to unencrypted. Setup is a bit of a PITA but overall it works great without needing IR-blaster cables or setup.

[BobF]

I don't think the DTA only recieves unencrypted QAM, since it will receive all the channels my QAM tuners can no longer get.

Bob

[decatab]

Not sure if this topic continues on other threads but I have similar dilemma. Comcast completed encrypting non-local channels so I've lost my capability to record USA, SyFy and TNT shows, among others. A friend mentioned the possibility of using my old analog tuner to receive ch 3 analog data from the DTA. I'm wondering what hardware I need for IR blasting and what additional software I need to get BTV to control the DTA so I can record Psych, Closer, etc. Thanks.

[ChefJoe]

decatab: Comcast did that in my area too. Luckily, the DTAs for Comcast now also handle the encrypted QAM (well, the stuff you pay for), via account authentication. That changed with an FCC encryption waiver since this topic was created.

Any sort of USB-UIRT will work, or you may be able to get a specialized IR blasters that plug into some of the PC capture cards out there. USB-UIRT Web Site They cost about $50 for the USB one, blasters specific to your capture cards are less and sometimes included free with certain packages. I believe that BeyondTV setup understands looking for these IR blasters and controlling them IF you set it up as using them for a cable box. I haven't gone down this road myself.

The downside is, dual tuner but internally split capture devices like the 2250 mentioned in this thread will have problems tuning these encrypted stations and, at best, function as a single tuner if just using coax but tuning these expanded lineup channels.

[decatab]

Thanks for the pointers, ChefJoe. I'm hoping to get at least one channel from the encrypted SD thru my old Nvidia dual tuner. I'll look for a blaster and start experimenting.