People with Digital Cable: How do you do it? (if you do)

L

Lamont

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 26, 2004
Messages
4,210
Ok, I am all ready to make a HTPC. But the problem I ran into is: the decoder cards do not decode anything above 100 (if you are on Cox San Diego it's 100+). Yes, I can pipe in from the S-Video port, but that's pretty much like a digital VCR, and it has to stay on the channel I am watching. Not fun.

Or do I pipe the signal from the digital cable box into my card via coaxal cable? Would it be decoded then? I can try with meh VCR tonight I guess, should be the same thing. But the channels on these cards don't break 130 or so...

Am I wrong?
 
svideo into card, USB-UIRT to let the PC autmatically change the channels on the box for you.
 
IDversusEGO said:
svideo into card, USB-UIRT to let the PC autmatically change the channels on the box for you.
Click to expand...

Did you not say serial was much easier for you? or was that only cause with the USB-UIRT there were multiple.

Anyway, I'd listen to IDversusEGO
 
wait till win media center 2005 release 2, code named emerald.

cable card support, meaning digital cable!
 
serial doesn't work with all boxes. For a single box and a new user, USB-UIRT is a piece of cake. It was more trouble finding a compatible model for serial control that it was to actually get the USB-UIRT working.

KillDFurby said:
wait till win media center 2005 release 2, code named emerald.

cable card support, meaning digital cable!
Click to expand...
limited support, long wait. will be cool as hell when it works though.
 
I record digitalTV with my Replay5040... but I'm looking for a similar HTPC solution as well.
 
fore1337 said:
I record digitalTV with my Replay5040... but I'm looking for a similar HTPC solution as well.
Click to expand...
So you do not need a Digital Cable box then? It does decoding as well?

The only problem is decoding the digital channels. Or from what I gather, there will be cable card support for HTPC's soon. I'm ready to do this now :). Or I can turn it into a media server and make the wife convert all our VHS tapes and DVD's to mpegs ;), and CD's into MP3's.
 
Lamont said:
So you do not need a Digital Cable box then? It does decoding as well?

The only problem is decoding the digital channels. Or from what I gather, there will be cable card support for HTPC's soon. I'm ready to do this now :). Or I can turn it into a media server and make the wife convert all our VHS tapes and DVD's to mpegs ;), and CD's into MP3's.
Click to expand...
I do need a cable box.

My Replay takes over one of the digital tuner boxes we got from the cable company. The best quality inputs into the Replay 5040 are S-Vid and RCA. The Replay has a little IR-Blaster module which changes the channel of the Digital tuner box to the appropriate channel before recording. It's the best net appliance I've ever purchased.

I don't know how else to record digital content to a PC.

Anyone familiar with the WinTV-D card? it's for America, but I don't know if it's for Over-The-Air only or what.
http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_d.html
 
Live TV from over-the-air Digital TV plus 125-channel cable ready tuner
i take it that it only works over the air and will do dig channels but only if they are done with out a dig cable box
 
I'll call them up tomorrow. If it can do digital cable, I'll buy two of them!

Thanks a lot for the link :)
 
I'm still trying to get the firewire output working :(

I hear the newest version of MythTV supports firewire output from Motorola cable boxes. If Sage TV or Beyond TV would support it, I would buy it in a second.
 
PRIME1 said:
I'm still trying to get the firewire output working :(

I hear the newest version of MythTV supports firewire output from Motorola cable boxes. If Sage TV or Beyond TV would support it, I would buy it in a second.
Click to expand...


Sage has support. Check out there forums, someone coded something that will do it.
 
I do dual Digital Cable tuners with my Sage Box. You have to use two cable boxes and svideo and a USB-UIRT. You may be able to do serial control, but that is rare with DirectTV and even more rare with Cable Boxes. So I would just use a USB-UIRT.

The thing to remember is the cable boxes MUST stay on, and that you can not manually control the cable boxes, your computer must have sole control. Also note that channel changing becomes very slow when you do this, make channel surfing basically not possible. However if you really use a PVR you should not channel surf ever.
 
m1abram said:
I do dual Digital Cable tuners with my Sage Box. You have to use two cable boxes and svideo and a USB-UIRT.
Click to expand...
which tuners are you using? Would happauage PVR-150MCE s work for this?
 
I just called and the WinTV-D and HD have been taken off the market. Whatever is out there is what's left...
 
fore1337 said:
which tuners are you using? Would happauage PVR-150MCE s work for this?
Click to expand...

Using one PVR-150MCE and a PVR-250MCE, work great. 2 150s should work
 
Just got an email reply from Happauge ...what a sucky response.

From: me
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: WinTV-D


Sales,
I'm interested in tuning Digital Television via my cable company. I have
2-3 digital cable tuner boxes but would like to tune on the computer
straight from the Coaxial connection.

I'm in North America. I'm not interested in doing Over-The-Air Digital
tuning.

Is this card right for me? WinTV-D
Will the WinTV-PVR-150 tune digital signals from the cable line?

Thanks!
-me
Click to expand...
their reply
No. WinTV-D, long since discontinued, was for receiving off-air HDTV signal.
You may use a PVR150 to receive signal from cable service. The set top
decoder box must be used and should be connected directly to the coax input
on our card. Set our tuner to channel 3 or 4 as instructed by your service
provider. Use the set top box to tune/change channels.

Sales dept.
Click to expand...
mo sucky response. He didn't even explain that you could control the TV box using a Serial Cable or IR Blaster.
 
technically, that would fall in the department of sage support, since it is what sends the signals.
 
IDversusEGO said:
technically, that would fall in the department of sage support, since it is what sends the signals.
Click to expand...

Exactly I do not see anything wrong with their response to your question.
 
KillDFurby said:
wait till win media center 2005 release 2, code named emerald.

cable card support, meaning digital cable!
Click to expand...


That wont be released until the fall. Even then Cable companies are trying to make it so that you are still locked down to their equipment to use it as a PVR. I just used a serial cable to have the channels changed. it seemed to be more reliable than the usb uirt way. I finally just stopped as I realized I never record anything up in the high numbers anyways.


edit: and the Wintv D was garbage anyways it wasnt well supported by just about anyone, Even if you find one I wouldnt recommend buying one.
 
I am not getting any of what you guys are saying... SOme one explain how i would get my brighthouse digi cable box with 1000+ channels to go to my HTPC...
 
Irishllama said:
I am not getting any of what you guys are saying... SOme one explain how i would get my brighthouse digi cable box with 1000+ channels to go to my HTPC...
Click to expand...

You need a USB-UIRT and a decent PVR software. The software will make the USB-UIRT act like a remote and change the channels and all that on the cable box for you. Unless your cable box has a serial connection, that's your only option.
 
won't help. the USB-UIRT connects to the PC. It allows sage or whatever app to act as a remote control.
 
All I've got are serial cables on my boxen. No S-video adapters either. :(
 
I am now completely confused as to who is asking what question. I don't even think the original paoster is posting in it anymore.

bottom line - To control an external box the easiest way, buy a USB-UIRT. hook it too your PC. install the drivers. point it at your cable box. learn the remote keys through sage. Done.
 
Well, I did find the info I wanted. Pretty much home-made PVR's are great as long as you don't have digital cable. Anything that's digital it will just be a sweet digital VCR.
 
why do you say that? Witht he USB-UIRT, my friend is running comcast digital cable just fine.
 
Lamont said:
Well, I did find the info I wanted. Pretty much home-made PVR's are great as long as you don't have digital cable. Anything that's digital it will just be a sweet digital VCR.
Click to expand...

That is WRONG. I have Comcast Digital Cable and use SageTV with dual tuners just fine.

You need a USB-UIRT or serial cable control of the cable box that is all. This is the same way Tivo handles Digital Cable boxes too.
 
Ok, so the PVR controls the cable box right? So when you want to record something the box needs to be on the channel you want to record? Tuner cards can not get 130+ Channels...
 
Lamont said:
Ok, so the PVR controls the cable box right? So when you want to record something the box needs to be on the channel you want to record? Tuner cards can not get 130+ Channels...
Click to expand...

Right the PVR controls the cable box. You connect the cable box to your tuner cards svideo port or if you cable box does not have svideo then the composite port.

The tuner is actually not used in the card so the fact that the card can not tune digital channels is not important. Only the video capture and encoding portions of the cards are used.
 
He is right. For external tuner boxes like digital cable and satellite, the onboard tuner is not used, just the onboard hardware encoding chip. At this point it is just a capture card, not a tuner card.

Instead, you set up the source as the Svideo input. Then you have a device like usb-uirt that does the channel changing. Using sage, you have the IR device learn the number keys of your remote. Now the PVR app (sage) can send an IR command out of the USB-UIRT to the cable box and change the channel on the box. The box just thinks it is the remote control changing the channel. It is the exact same way a stand adlone TiVo box works.
 
By doing this you can't record two different channels unless one is not a digital channel right?
 
to do 2 shows at once, you need 2 tuners and 2 capture chips. since the cable box is now your tuner, you would need a second one. and since the PVR is your capture chip, you would need a second one.

even if he was using analog cable, he couldn't record 2 channels at once with one PVR card unless it was a PVR-500.
 
IDversusEGO said:
to do 2 shows at once, you need 2 tuners and 2 capture chips. since the cable box is now your tuner, you would need a second one. and since the PVR is your capture chip, you would need a second one.

even if he was using analog cable, he couldn't record 2 channels at once with one PVR card unless it was a PVR-500.
Click to expand...


Well I was assuming two capture cards. :)
 
if you break it down simply and call the digital box what it is, a tuner, then this isn't too difficult. with dish or digital, you are using an external tuner. with analog cable or over-the-air, you are using an internal tuner. Whether it is your PVR or the ones built into your tv.
 
just wanted to ask a question.

if I go digital cable and use sage with a usb blaster thingy, could I use any capture card? as in i could sell my pvr 500 and just use something like a firewire capture box (which I already have and has hardware encoding)?

thanks!
 
With Sage you must use a supported capture device, like that PVR-500 that you have. It's a damn fine card.
 
yeah, the capture device must be supported by the software. other than that, it is fine to use a capture device since you are no longer using hte card to tune channels.
 
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