tv tuner

[maryhigginsrice]

Hi everyone. I need a tv tuner that will be compatible with WindowsXP Media Center 2005 and will receive the extended basic channels(100-200) that Comcast has to offer. I brought a Wintv HVR 1250 tv tuner and it only receives channels 2-99. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[edDV]

Hi everyone. I need a tv tuner that will be compatible with WindowsXP Media Center 2005 and will receive the extended basic channels(100-200) that Comcast has to offer. I brought a Wintv HVR 1250 tv tuner and it only receives channels 2-99. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

No such animal. Only cable boxes and cable smart cards tune subscription cable "digital" channels. There is some beta testing going on for computer tuners with cable card. It isn't going well.

Normal MCE tuners come with infrared transmitters that are used to change cable box channels. Recording is done from the composite/S-Video SD connection. Some cable systems allow digital SD/HD out over IEEE-1394. Experiment.

[jagabo]

The HVR-1250 can tune clear QAM channels. That should include your local channels and a few others.

[RBK]

DVICO
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx
They make a card with dual Digital Analog Tuners which should work with Comcast.

There are a few things you should be aware of with this card. It is made in Korea and the company needs to get someone on the staff who can write in English. Sometimes it is a little hard to follow the instructions.

I used a prior single tuner version of this card (FusionHDTV5 Express) on an older Machine with an Intel Motherboard and a Pentium D processor running Media Center Edition 2005 attached to a 42inch LCD television and have Comcast as my current Cable provider.

The performance was very good even on this old machine but the installation was difficult. The drivers did not install correctly and I had to manually update the drivers through the XP Operating system in order to get them working. When the machine booted up it would hang on the XP logo screen for 15 - 20 minutes before continuing to boot up. Once the XP booted up it worked very well. I tried my VISTA upgrade and it did no exhibit any of these problems but of course VISTA comes with a bag full of its own issues and I am not willing to deal with VISTA OS on day to day bases so out it went.

I have upgraded my computer to a newer Intel motherboard and processor and installed XP. The newer DVICO software installs with no difficulty and the computer boots up normally and everything works. I can't at this time say of the motherboard processor combination or Windows Media Center Edition - 2005 was the problem. I will be trying to install Media Center 2005 again in the near future and hope that the problems do not reappear.

You should also be aware that under Windows Media Center in order for the Media Center software to recognize a HD card even if it also supports analog you must have a separate analog card in the machine during install. I have been told that once you get everything running you can remove the single analog card. VISTA does not have this problem but as I noted above it has problems of its own. It is possible that because the newer DVICO has two separate tuners it may install and work on Media Center 2005 with the one card but I have no way of knowing if it does. The DVICO has some software that works under XP or Media Center 2005 but of course you lose the Simple to use Media center interface.

I also have an ATI All In Wonder 2006 and a ATI 550 analog tuner card. Neither of these cards produce output equal to the DVICO.

Over all I like the DVICO card a lot and the quality of the output is very good and I will be buying the newer card for a second machine. If there are any other questions I may be able to answer let me know.

[jagabo]

DVICO
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx
They make a card with dual Digital Analog Tuners which should work with Comcast.

Channels over 100 are digital. The Dvico card has a clear QAM tuner but so does his HVR-1250. If he wants encrypted QAM channels he'll need a Cablecard based device. And as edDV pointed out, cable company support for this is nearly nonexistent.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2959&p=1

[RBK]

DVICO
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx
They make a card with dual Digital Analog Tuners which should work with Comcast.

Channels over 100 are digital. The Dvico card has a clear QAM tuner but so does his HVR-1250. If he wants encrypted QAM channels he'll need a Cablecard based device. And as edDV pointed out, cable company support for this is nearly nonexistent.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2959&p=1

Maybe I didn’t understand the original question

“Hi everyone. I need a tv tuner that will be compatible with WindowsXP Media Center 2005 and will receive the extended basic channels(100-200) that Comcast has to offer. I brought a Wintv HVR 1250 tv tuner and it only receives channels 2-99. Any suggestions will be appreciated”

I thought they were only interested in the extended basic channels and not encrypted QAM (which are as you point out are both digital) I don’t have the HVR 1250 card but the website indicated there are two version available one was without QAM support and I assumed (perhaps wrongly that is the card they have).

I had checked with Comcast and got conflicting answers concerning the legality of using a clear QAM receiver. I was told by some I needed a converter box too legally use the clear QAM channels. I don’t receive any pay for HD channels which require encrypted QAM nor do I have any desire to at the present time so this solution works fine for me and seemed to fit what they original question asked. I also have Verizon FIOS TV available and will be checking out if they have different requirements/policies.

The HVR-1250 (with QAM) will probably work in the same fashion but part of the reason I went to the DVICO solution was the included DVHS (which I use) connection and the Conversion software the convert HD – TS files to other formats. The XP media center problems unfortunately remain no matter what board you use.

[edDV]

DVICO
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx
They make a card with dual Digital Analog Tuners which should work with Comcast.

Channels over 100 are digital. The Dvico card has a clear QAM tuner but so does his HVR-1250. If he wants encrypted QAM channels he'll need a Cablecard based device. And as edDV pointed out, cable company support for this is nearly nonexistent.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2959&p=1

Maybe I didn’t understand the original question

“Hi everyone. I need a tv tuner that will be compatible with WindowsXP Media Center 2005 and will receive the extended basic channels(100-200) that Comcast has to offer. I brought a Wintv HVR 1250 tv tuner and it only receives channels 2-99. Any suggestions will be appreciated”

I thought they were only interested in the extended basic channels and not encrypted QAM (which are as you point out are both digital) I don’t have the HVR 1250 card but the website indicated there are two version available one was without QAM support and I assumed (perhaps wrongly that is the card they have).

I had checked with Comcast and got conflicting answers concerning the legality of using a clear QAM receiver. I was told by some I needed a converter box too legally use the clear QAM channels. I don’t receive any pay for HD channels which require encrypted QAM nor do I have any desire to at the present time so this solution works fine for me and seemed to fit what they original question asked. I also have Verizon FIOS TV available and will be checking out if they have different requirements/policies.

The HVR-1250 (with QAM) will probably work in the same fashion but part of the reason I went to the DVICO solution was the included DVHS (which I use) connection and the Conversion software the convert HD – TS files to other formats. The XP media center problems unfortunately remain no matter what board you use.

ClearQAM support is mandated by the FCC for certain local brodcast channels and subject to agreement between the TV station and cable company for others. Beyond that, the cable company can do as it chooses. Normally, the "digital" cable channels (100 up on Comcast and Time Warner cable boxes) are encrypted and unavailable to computer QAM tuners.

"Cablecard" is also an FCC requirement but the cable companies are very unsupportive and most TV manufacturers have deleted cablecard support from upper range dighital TV sets. Microsoft is encouraging cablecard computer tuners as a solution for MCE but the cable and sat companies don't want to go there. The new administration could go either way on this but I'd expect the "Hollywood" lobby to insist cablecard be killed off and worse that HDCP be applied to OTA broadcasts.

[maryhigginsrice]

Thanks everyone for clearing up this matter for me. I appeciate your comments. Have a safe and happy holiday.
maryhigginsrice.