Can i capture digital signal ( cable company)?

[alain]

In Quebec province, we have cable company that give on his cable, standard and digital
tv channels.. Then snaptream works great with
standard channel between channel 2 and 99, for example.
But can i capture their digital signal with snapstream and a tv tuner ( or capture card)?
You understand that those digital signal
maybe scrambled ( you know what i mean...)
thank you in advance,
Alain

I am interested in this capability as well. Most of the channels that I like to record are in the range above 99. Is this possible now or in a future release?

I would assume this capibility lies in the hardware of your TV card it would have to be able to interpret the digital cable siginal, I do not know of any TV cards that can tune other than standard cable stations.

Anyone else know more on this issue?

[jscherer]

Check out a company called B2C2 at www.b2c2.com They have a PCI based card that acts as a cable box and is suppose to support the digital/HDTV broadcasts.


Here is the spec sheet: www.b2c2.com/products/pc-specs.html

[zigguratt]

I looked into this company as well, but I think their products are meant for providers (i.e. in set-top boxes from your cable company), not for the general public. I couldn't find even a hint of a price list on their site. I want this because I'd like to switch over entirely to a HTPC, but don't want to lose the digital channels provided by my cable company (Rogers here in Toronto).

If anyone has more info I'd love to hear it.

[Update: I just sent email to B2C2 asking the question. I'll relay any response I get.]


[This message has been edited by zigguratt (edited 09-17-2001).]

[zigguratt]

Well, I got a pretty quick response from B2C2. Unfortunately, it is as I suspected: they don't sell to individuals. Here's my message and their response:

Hi there,

Do you sell your PCI cards (specifically the Cable4PC) to the general public? I'd be very interested in purchasing one, as I'm building a Home Theatre PC and this would allow me to access the digital channels I currently get from my cable provider on this HTPC. I want the PC to be the central component in my Home Theatre, but if I don't have a way to get at the digital channels, I wouldn't have a complete system.

Thanks for any information you can provide!

Daniel,

Thanks for your interest in our products. Unfortunately we do not sell our PCI cards to single users. Also, in order to use Cable4PC you need you ISP to offer a service that supports DVB standard which, I believe, it is not the case.

Regards,

Mauricio Vieira
Director of Sales
B2C2, Inc.
Tel: (510) 473-0364
Fax: (510) 814-7302
Mobile: (510) 701-7870 www.b2c2inc.com

[geoffstewart]

I use Rogers Digital Cable here in Ottawa and I've thought of this solution but have yet to iron out all the details.

First, the Scientific Atlanta set-top box allows you to setup a "recording" but assumes that you're connecting to a VCR. However, this allows you to pick the show you want to record and tunes the box to the digital cable channel at the right time.

Second, I will use the S-Video output and RCA audio outputs from the digital set-top box to input into my Hauppauge WinTV PCI card.

Third, and this is the missing piece of the puzzle, in order to get the Hauppauge card to use the S-video input instead of the tuner, I intend on creating my own Tuning Interface DLL (as explained at http://www.snapstream.com/products/i...interface.htm) that switches the registry entries for the tuner card to use S-Video at the time of the recording from a digital channel and switch the card to use the tuner again so that other programs can be recorded from regular cable.

What's kind of disappointing is that using the WinTV2000 software, you can create a channel (say channel 999) that is actually the S-video input. However, I cannot get snapstream to tune to that channel. Whenever I use snapstream to record on channel 999, I get blue screen and static. It appears that only the TV program can do tune to this special channel. Of course, this feature could've made this problem relatively trivial.... but alas it does not

If I get anything working, I'll post a HOWTO.

Any thoughts on my plan?

Geoff

[zigguratt]

Sorry Geoff, I didn't see your response until today. I'd be interested as I have the Scientific Atlanta box as well.

Any progress on the Tuning Interface DLL?

[geoffstewart]

I started a thread in the Development and Support Forum to find out more information from SnapStream about the Tuning Interface. Didn't get a response from SS, but PBMax has offered some good ideas on ways to solve this problem. I'll look into those.

I also contacted Hauppauge support directly and asked about an API for selecting inputs and they sent me an OCX with source code so I'm just about ready to start looking at that. Once I have something... or realize that I don't have the patience I'll post an update.

Thanks.

Geoff

well, i have a WinTV Theater and a sattelite reciever, connected to my Svideo input. therefor i don't even use my tuner. i have set up only 1 channel in WinTV2K, and it's the svideo input channel. that way, whenever i turn on snapstream, wintv2k or any other such app it is always set on the coorect "channel".

[geoffstewart]

That solution would work fine with me too except I need to be able to switch between shows being recorded on the tuner and shows being recorded on the S-Video input. I have a digital cable box feeding the S-video and regular cable on the tuner.

Thanks for the input, though.

Geoff

[taozi]

I am using replaytv and digitabl cable(time warner), I just use a splitter to tranfer
cable output to tvcard in my computer, then
use SS to record the same program as what
I set on replaytv, then I can watch either
on replaytv, computer or pocketpc(Casio E125)

[caschbre]

Originally posted by taozi:
I am using replaytv and digitabl cable(time warner), I just use a splitter to tranfer
cable output to tvcard in my computer, then
use SS to record the same program as what
I set on replaytv, then I can watch either
on replaytv, computer or pocketpc(Casio E125)

I have digital cable also from Time Warner and I am looking into purchasing SnapStream. My question is to get all of the digital channels, including premium movie / sport channels, do I have to send the cable through the Time Warner cable box and then into my tuner card or can the tuner card descramble the channels?

Also, how are pay-per-view channels handled?

I'm pretty new to researching SnapStream and haven't been able to find any info about working with digital cable.

[Julia]

I just got one of the Scientific Atlanta boxes today, and I hooked it up with S-Video while to my WinTV Theater card. I simply created another Video Source in the Configure section and set it to the SVideo... and it can record fine from the svideo input... The only thing is to use it you have to select the advanced settings in a recording to use the seperate video source. It would be nice if you could use alternate sources more easily. I'll have to investigate the VCR record feature along with the snapstream, or get one of the cable paks from snapstream.

Julia