[mythtv-users] PVR-350 no signal?

[Brian Wood]

On Sunday 07 February 2010 03:33:18 pm George Mari wrote:
> On 02/07/2010 02:35 PM, mythtv at splmail.nl wrote:
> > Thx for the reply! The source is standard analog TV. I've gone through
> > the "input setup" numerous times, but don seem to get it working. After
> > connecting the card to the video-source I try to scan for channels, but
> > get 0% signal indicated.
> 
> OK, when you say, "..standard analog TV", that could still mean a few
> different things, so how about if I list the ways the PVR-350 can work,
> and you can tell us which one corresponds to your situation.
> 
> 1. The PVR-350 has a built-in, analog tuner.  This allows you connect a
> TV antenna directly to it's RF input jack, and you can then, in theory,
> tune OTA (over-the-air) broadcast signals.  I say in theory because
> unless you've been living in a cave, you should have heard by now that
> basically all OTA broadcast TV has switch to digital transmissions. The
> PVR-350 cannot tune these digital broadcasts directly.  You may be able
> to pick a handful of low-power TV stations broadcasting in your area
> (Chicago has 2 or 3) but the takeaway here is that your not going to get
> anything useful by connecting an antenna to a PVR-350 in this day and age.


The OP is clearly not in the USA. I don't know what the over-the-are situation 
is in the Netherlands, but it's entirely possible he has some UHF analog 
channels available.

> 
> 2. If you have cable TV service, you can connect an analog cable to the
> RF input of your PVR-350, and again, use the internal tuner to directly
> tune at least the basic cable channels that are not encrypted by your
> local cable service.  Be aware that many cable systems around the
> country are moving away from analog cable to digital cable - the PVR-350
> cannot directly tune these with its internal tuner.

Even here in the USA there are still a lot of analog channels available on 
cable systems, though I agree most systems are moving away from them. I 
receive over 60 analog channels, and my PVRs are still useful, for now at 
least.

> 
> 3. You are using a settop box from your TV service provider (cable or
> satellite) and you are recording output from the settop box via a
> composite (RCA) cable, RF cable, or an S-Video cable, plugging the cable
> into the corresponding jack on the PVR-350.  You need to use an external
> device to tune the settop box - usually an infrared IR-blaster of some
> sort, or possibly a serial port, if your settop box supports it.
> 

Maybe even firewire, but again I have no idea what's available in the 
Netherlands.


> So which one of these situations best describes what you are trying to do?

AFAIK none of the above situations supports channel scanning by Myth, so we 
need to find out what the OP's signal source is, then we can offer some 
(hopefully) useful advice.