[mythtv-users] standard vs digital cable

Joseph Fry joe at thefrys.com
Mon Jul 14 14:36:44 EDT 2003


You heard wrong,  wintv-D cards are not digital cable tuners.  They are HDTV tuners that recieve their signal via terrestial brodcast (an antenna on your roof, like the old days).

Digital cable systems are, for all intensive purposes, proprietary.  There may be many similarities from one provider to another, but ultimately they are all different.  The recievers are flashed with decryption information that allows them to recieve the channels, and the system is bidirectional (unlike sat.) which allows them to control who gets access. 

Your only solution for recieving the non-analog channels (usually all the ones above 125) is to use their reciever to tune them.  You can not even buy your own reciever (at least not with any provider I've had experience with).  I dropped digital cable cuz, my stupid provider advertised "digital quality video and sound" but only offered recievers with analog outputs.  There was a spot for a digital coax out, but they decided to be cheap and not buy those... digital audio my ass.

If your on some provider that will allow you to buy your own equipment and they will provision it, then the possibility of a card that can tune digital cable directly becomes a slight possibility... but because such providers are rare (if they exist at all) you'll probably never see such a card as the market would be too small.

So just hook your analog tuner card to your digital cable box via the svideo port, and tune the digital cable box with an ir blaster.  It's your only solution and it's been done by many many people here for that reason.

Good luck,

Joe



---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Lonny Selinger" <lonny at bangtherockstogether.net>
Reply-To: Discussion about mythtv <mythtv-users at snowman.net>
Date:  Mon, 14 Jul 2003 13:25:27 -0600 (CST)

>I know in my area (Sask Canada) we have digital boxes as well .. its
>digital to the box and the out is analog. Just playing around with a
>PVR-250 to see what all it would pick up, I can get all my analog
>channels straight from the wall, and get all my digital channels off
>the out from the cable box ... the only problem is its using their
>menuing system etc ... I can display any channel through the PVR-250
>tuned to the out channel on the box.
>
>I've spoken to a couple people and they say you can use almost any
>digital reciever here and get the higher channels so I'm wondering if
>grabbing a digital card (at some point), that also handles analog
>would be the solution.
>
>I read that WinTV-D cards should be able to do this but I haven't
>hammered away to see what the support uner Linux is ... so far its
>looking scarce and not worth it *yet*
>
>--
>Lonny
>
>> I agree ... going without a cable box is a whole lot
>> easier, but I know that in my area you really can't do
>> that if you want premium channels.  In fact, last time
>> I looked they don't even offer *basic* cable without
>> the box ... the cheapest package includes a box now.
>>
>> When you do this you do still get all your normal
>> analog channels which you can view without the box,
>> but there are no premium channels available.  Could be
>> a different story for you though, so just be aware of
>> the fact that you most likely can't get premium
>> channels on analog stations anymore.  At least not
>> many of them.
>>
>>
>> --- Joshua Santelli <santellij at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Currently, I have digital cable and was looking into
>>> an IR blaster solution to change my channels.
>>> However, I think I would rather switch to "standard"
>>> cable if that would eliminate my need to have a set
>>> top box (cable box) and, more importantly, the IR
>>> blaster.  (it's also cheaper)
>>>
>>> Will the cheap TV tuner card I have (ATI Wonder VE)
>>> work with all of the cable channels including
>>> "premium" channels?  The cable company (Time Warner)
>>> mentioned that if I got the HBO package that I would
>>> need to have _their_ cable box, not just a "cable
>>> ready" TV.
>>>
>>> Anything else I should be aware of when making this
>>> decision?
>>>
>>>
>>> __________________________________
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>>
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