Media Center QAM tuners?

Joined
Oct 23, 2006
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935
Hello everyone,
Is there currently any tuner that can take HD qam through a coax cable connection and allow access to it through Windows Vista Media Center? I receive qam through my time warner cable and want the local channels in HD through Media Center. Please Help!
Gracias.
 
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Any idea if the ATI HD Wonder 650 will work with Vista MCE, or do you need to use ATI's media center? My cable company offers QAM HD local channels and I'd like to feed them into Vista Media Center.
 
Any idea if the ATI HD Wonder 650 will work with Vista MCE, or do you need to use ATI's media center? My cable company offers QAM HD local channels and I'd like to feed them into Vista Media Center.

The 650 Wonder does not work with QAM, I just tried it. :(
 
Really, that's odd. The specs for that product list QAM support very clearly. Is it the PCI Express version?

No, PCI. Let me clarify that the 650 does not work with Comcast since Comcast sucks balls. You can get the channels through your HD box but the quality drops down to 480i = t3h SuCk!!11
 
No, PCI. Let me clarify that the 650 does not work with Comcast since Comcast sucks balls. You can get the channels through your HD box but the quality drops down to 480i = t3h SuCk!!11

Actually I think that's the problem right there. The PCI version doesn't say it's QAM capable, only the PCIe version.
 
Actually I think that's the problem right there. The PCI version doesn't say it's QAM capable, only the PCIe version.

Says right here on the Visiontek box that it can "schedule, watch and record analog TV, "free-to-air" HDTV, unencrypted digital ClearQAM cable TV and FM stations . . .". It's just that comcast sucks balls. ;)
 
I had the 650 PCIe version and yes it does tune QAM but not thru media center. You have to use the ATI CCC program to get QAM and that program is not as user friendly and stable compared to Media Center.
 
There are two kinds of 650 tuner; the regular 650 tuners and the new 650 Combo which is the one that adds in ClearQAM support but only in ATI's CCC app. You can't get it to do QAM in anything else (and yes it's incredibly un-user friendly).

So yeah, back to MCE. The only way to get QAM in MCE is through Avermedia's M780 card and their beta drivers or with SiliconDust's HDHomeRun. No other ways around it, thats the only two ways to do it.
 
Is it also true that the HDHR does NOT tune NTSC (analog) cable channels? I think people want a single device (plug-in card or external box) that gives us NTSC and the few QAM channels that's on cable tv. Oh, and tune ntsc/qam within either MCE2005 or Vista Media Center and have a DVR to boot. Remember I'm only asking for ntsc and clear qam. Can this be done?
 
Says right here on the Visiontek box that it can "schedule, watch and record analog TV, "free-to-air" HDTV, unencrypted digital ClearQAM cable TV and FM stations . . .". It's just that comcast sucks balls. ;)

I have the hauppaugge (however you spell it) 1800 and it works fine with comcast. I have xp mce and qam doesn't work with it but it does work with the hauppaugge tv application.
 
Is it also true that the HDHR does NOT tune NTSC (analog) cable channels? I think people want a single device (plug-in card or external box) that gives us NTSC and the few QAM channels that's on cable tv. Oh, and tune ntsc/qam within either MCE2005 or Vista Media Center and have a DVR to boot. Remember I'm only asking for ntsc and clear qam. Can this be done?

Yeah it doesn't tuner NTSC, if you want both then get the Avermedia M780 which does both NTSC and QAM.
 
Weird. I have the M780. Charter messed with all the channels. I don't get any of the HDTV local channels, but I do get all 40 of their digital music channels, (including the cheesy slide shows they play) along with some random other digital channels, like G4, Spanish MTV and their on demand ordering channel. WTF??

That's OK by me though. The digital music channels actually sound pretty good through the card. I basically use the media center as background noise when I work, so the music channels are going to get used quite a bit.
 
"ClearQAM – Digital TV over Cable
Introduced with ATI TV Wonder™ 650 Combo PCI Express®, the advanced capabilities of watching unencrypted Digital Cable TV (ClearQAM) provides another way to view digital TV on the PC. With ClearQAM technology, DTV services are enabled though Digital Cable, providing new means of receiving DTV channels"


http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/index.html

I have been looking for the 650 PCI-E 1X but havn't seen it out yet. Is there a place selling it now?
 
MCE2005 or Vista Media Center or both? The reason I ask is that I'm just about to build a new machine.

I am using it in Vista Ultimate Media Center. You can change between QAM and NTSC channels just as you would any other channel. Its seamless.
 
The HDHomeRun it doesn't matter what OS; the hardware is doing the QAM tuning and then makes it look like a regular ATSC feed when it sends it over to the HTPC. Thats why it's a wonderful device.
 
So I found something interesting. When I did the scan I got over 200HD channels, most of which didn't work. I was able to find all the local channels and I get the 40 music channels. Those blank channels are the movie on demand channels. For example, last night I watched "Meet the Robinsons." on one of the QAM channels. I happened to find it about 10 minutes after it started. After the move ended, it went back to no signal. Going through the other channels around it, I saw a lot of the other On demand movies playing. I also caught the last part of Transformers. I guess they don't put any protection on them. :cool:
 
So I found something interesting. When I did the scan I got over 200HD channels, most of which didn't work. I was able to find all the local channels and I get the 40 music channels. Those blank channels are the movie on demand channels. For example, last night I watched "Meet the Robinsons." on one of the QAM channels. I happened to find it about 10 minutes after it started. After the move ended, it went back to no signal. Going through the other channels around it, I saw a lot of the other On demand movies playing. I also caught the last part of Transformers. I guess they don't put any protection on them. :cool:

I used to get the same thing in my apartment complex where several people must have digital cable so I pick up the movie they are watching. And about every night around 9pm someone watches porn... sometime really weird porn.
 
I actually just got the HDHomerun and am selling it right now because Charter in St. Louis has absolutely no unencrypted QAM channels. I found 3 InDemand ones that get shut off once a movie is finished. So it's up on the For sale thread now at $150.00. Nice discount over the normal price indeed.

But it was easy to setup and use once I got it, so that's good news for anyone wanting one.

I just want to restate, that the HDHomerun works perfectly fine. It does ATSC over the air perfectly, and can do unencrypted QAM. The reason I am getting rid of mine is because I live in St. Louis MO and Charter has unencrypted QAM on lockdown, only 3 channels are available and they are all inDemand ones. Also I have a Avermedia Combo PCI-E Tuner and if need be, I can always use its Beta drivers to get QAM.
 
thats weird. I have charter and get about 15 channels. I get TBS, TNT, 4 local channels, MTV, VH1, showtime & HBO (might be coming from someone's digital cable or satellite in my apartment complex), CNN, BBC, and a few others that I can't think of off the top of my head.
 
Yeah it sucks. I have tried with the HDHomerun and I tried with the Avermedia Combo card, both of them only register 3 Indemand channels it looks like. I mean they also grab 10 channels that are like Home Shopping Network, CSPAN, CSPAN2, and some religious channels, but those don't really count for me.

So Charter in St. Louis or Southern Illinois just closes everything up.
 
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