WinTV, Clear QAM, VLC Player

[lloydte]

Can I use VLC to capture a digital Clear QAM with WinTV-HVR-1950?

[usually_quiet]

Can I use VLC to capture a digital Clear QAM with WinTV-HVR-1950?

If you are in N. America I would recommend that you try something other than VLC, like WinTV 7, NextPVR, or Potplayer. I had no luck getting VLC to work for digital TV in the US.

Also, if you are in the US, most large cable TV providers are encrypting all digital channels. In 2012, the FCC eliminated the requirement to provide local channels in unencrypted form. Canadian cable companies never had any restrictions on encryption, so few subscribers have access to any unencrypted digital channels.

[lloydte]

Do you mean I can use VLC to run the TV tuner in canada? Your reply will help me decide what to do. Thanks. My requirement was to use VLC media player.

[usually_quiet]

Do you mean I can use VLC to run the TV tuner in canada? Your reply will help me decide what to do. Thanks. My requirement was to use VLC media player.

I advised you to use something else and not to bother with VLC for clear QAM. Although VLC may have worked at one time for ATSC/QAM tuning, I think VLC is now broken for that. I could never get VLC to work for ATSC, either although I have been successful with several other programs.

Also, since you are apparently using it for Canadian digital cable, it isn't likely that there are any clear QAM channels you for you to tune anyway.

[lloydte]

Thanks, do you know then of any player that shows the bit rate, frame rate, resolution, aspect ration or the codec details from a captured digital TV using any TV Tuner?

[usually_quiet]

Thanks, do you know then of any player that shows the bit rate, frame rate, resolution, aspect ration or the codec details from a captured digital TV using any TV Tuner?

If you a have a file, MediaInfo is better for providing that information than VLC, in most cases. The only exceptions are wtv or dvr-ms files from Windows Media Center. VLC provides more information than MediaInfo for .wtv or dvr-ms files from Windows Media Center.

[Koti]

I know in Media Center (Win 7) you can enter 411 then Ctrl+D (for more detailed info pages you can use the ◄ ► keys)

http://www.missingremote.com/guide/tips-and-tweaks-view-detailed-tuner-information-win...7-media-center

[jman98]

Thanks, do you know then of any player that shows the bit rate, frame rate, resolution, aspect ration or the codec details from a captured digital TV using any TV Tuner?

You don't actually need most of that information because it will always be the same thing for the same type of source. Since Canada uses the same standard as the USA, here's what you have:

Standard definition (anything NOT in high definition) will always be 29.97 frames per second, 720x480 and 4:3 aspect ratio.

High definition comes in 2 flavors. I don't know which Canadian TV companies use which. In the USA, Fox and ABC use 720p and CBS and NBC use 1080i. Everybody else is too numerous to mention, but usually 1080i.

720p is 60 frames per second, 1280x720 and 16:9 aspect ratio.
1080i is 29.97 frames per second, 1920x1080 and 16:9 aspect ratio.

Note that some programs like VLC incorrectly report fields per second and NOT frames per second on some/many/all TV captures and the value you see is twice the actual frames per second value.

MPEG-2 is the official broadcast and cable TV video codec. I think I read that satellite uses H.264 but I am not sure about that. If your capture device only records in, say, H.264, then that's what you get.

[usually_quiet]

Standard definition (anything NOT in high definition) will always be 29.97 frames per second, 720x480 and 4:3 aspect ratio.

That is simply wrong. Have you ever actually looked at any SD broadcast streams captured using an ATSC/QAM tuner, or even looked at the standards for ATSC or QAM? Looking at my own recordings from 480i over-the-air channels, I have some that are 704x480, as well as some that are 528x480. 480x480, 544x480 and 640x480 are other 480i resolution allowed by the standard. I haven't personally seen any 480p broadcasts, but the standard allows those to use 23.976 fps or 59.94 fps as well as 29.97 fps.16:9 is also allowed by the standard for 704x480 but I have not seen it used.

I looked around a bit more and couldn't find anything that listed 720x480 as a valid resolution for ATSC and as far as I can tell, QAM as implemented by N. American cable TV providers allows the same resolutions as ATSC.

However, capture devices that record from the analog or HDMI outputs from a set-top box will often use 720x480 for their SD recordings.