[mythtv-users] pchdtv 5500, verizon fios, and ota, oh my!

[Andrew Kimpton]

Kurt Yoder wrote:
> Hello all
>
> I sunk some money into a pchdtv 5500 a few months ago, and now I'm  
> thinking about good ways to integrate it into my various TV signal  
> sources for my myth box. I have a few channels I can get OTA (metro  
> Washington DC area), especially if I get a decent antenna. I also  
> have Verizon FIOS and an SD set top box I could use for capturing  
> purposes. I'm thinking of two possibilities for using these signal  
> sources:
>
> 1. The FIOS coaxial cable outputs MOCA instead of the QAM that cable  
> companies provide. I don't think I can get anything by connecting a  
> Verizon coax cable directly from the wall to the pchdtv card since it  
> is QAM-only (I tried it, and a scan of the channels returned  
> nothing). It would be really cool if I could find some way to  
> overcome this so I could pull HD directly off the Verizon coax cable  
> and avoid the 15$/month HD set top box fee. I don't mind only getting  
> the unencrypted channels, since this is what I'd get OTA anyway. I'm  
> assuming it would need some kind of MOCA to QAM converter. Does such  
> a beast exist?
>
>   
Here in the Boston area the FIOS TV Coax connection is QAM-256 (and MOCA 
I think for some aspects - the two seem to co-exist in some sense), 
although the vast majority of channels are encrypted the common OTA (and 
local community access channels) appear in the main to be unencrypted. 
With the hundreds of channels on FIOS did you perhaps overlook just 6-8 
unencrypted program streams ?

Admittedly I'm using a HDHomeRun not a PCHDTV 5500 though

Andrew 8-)