Has anyone used the pcHDTV HD-3000 for use with unencrypted QAM HDTV signals over cable? If so, how did you go about getting it to work right? Would I still use the DVB_fixer.sh script that is used for OTA HDTV?

I had it working for OTA HDTV, but I should get more channels over cable, so I am trying to switch to that. (I have confirmed that my cable company has unencrypted QAM) When I scan for channels, it gets a lock on them, then I run the cron.daily job to get the listings, but when I go to watch TV on that card I get a blank screen for a minute or so then it drops back to the MythTV program.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
~Matt

yes it gets a lock on them, but does it actually define the channels and say it found blah at channelx if not then you are in the same boat I am with comcast they strip the psip data and myth willnot add the channels to the database even though it locks on them without the psip data, because it does not know what to put in the station id field. There are manual ways of doing the process, but I looked at it and figured it would probably take me like 8 uniterupted hours to do it manually and gave up and went back to broadcast.

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Xsecrets

It does give channel names (and digital channel numbers) and says it adds the channels. eg. wixthd (91). I got one channel to actually display once, but myth wouldn't change channels, so i played some more and now don't even get that channel.

Also, do you have a link to the manual process? I would only get 1 OTA channel (Too far away from tower), but 6+ QAM ones, that's why I'm trying to go QAM.

~Matt

I have it bookmarked in one of my browsers, but not here I will try to look it up later and post it, but it is a thread over on the mythtv mailing list archives.

btw. which cable provider do you have? They are all supposed to keep the psip data, but at least the last time I checked (been a while now) comcast didn't

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Xsecrets

I have Time Warner in Farmington, NY.

I'll take a look over at the MythTV mailing list and see if I can find that.

Thanks,
~Matt

Alrighty, after some playing around, I found that they do transmit the data that I needed. My problem was that I was setting the default channel to one that was encrypted, so it was crashing when trying to tune to it.

Now I can tune to a few HD channels. Unfortunately either my signal is poor or my P4 2.4GHz can't keep up with decoding, because the picture skips, gets pixelated, and sound goes in and out. Have any pointers on a situation like this? Or just try to get a cleaner signal?

Thanks,
~Matt

It could be both (I think most people recommend a 3GHz or faster system to decode HDTV without XvMC assistance), but the picture pixelation sounds like it could be a signal problem.

EDIT: I forgot you were using cable so antenna orientation is irrelevant. Are you splitting the cable anywhere?

Yeah, lets see if I can diagram this is text.

I split it a few times, and before I start I guess my first question should be, does the location in the splitting cascade make a difference on the signal strength? Or does the signal for the entire line get degraded per split?



So I have a total of 3 splitters, but the HD card is on the first split. Being in a Townhouse, I only have 1 Cable jack per floor and no option to add more If the total line signal degrades per splitter, I guess I will have to devise a different scheme.

~Matt

Each 2-way splitter dimishes the signal by 50% in the two arms. So if you have 100% signal coming in:

Cable
------
100%
50% 50% to HDTV
25% 25% to Internet
12% 12% to analog card
6% 6% to TV set


A single 4-way splitter would be:

25% to HDTV
25% to Internet
25% to analog card
25% to TV set

Also, the quality of the cables can make a big difference. Don't use the "press on" connections, they suck. Use low-loss coax like RG-6, with good connectors, wherever you can.

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Holy Cow!!! Dude this is the absolute worst way to do this!

1) Go to Radio Shack or your favorite electronics store and get the most way spliter they have, three way is usually the maximum. The splitters will have a dB loss figure figure printed or stamped on them. I've forgotten how to calculate the loss when you daisy chaning them except for the basic fact that it's darn near worst case... Not to mention reflections and other kinds of interference...

2) If you need to go more than 3 ways, you probably need a powered splitter that will keep the signal levels acceptible.

Alrighty, thanks for the tips, I'll probably hit Radio shack tomorrow, then update how it went.

~Matt