[mythtv-users] Will Hauppauge PVR-150 work for digital cable?

[Rich West]

Craig Hagerman wrote:
> I want to set up a mythtv box for my parents. I already have a
> Hauppauge PVR-150 I was going to use. I just found out that they had
> been upgraded to analog cable a few months ago. (They live in Ontario
> and I guess Rogers cable upgraded them for some reason. I don't think
> it is HDTV, but I have no idea.) I had set up mythtv before on
> whatever cable system we have used in Ontario previously. I am just
> wondering if the PVR-150 will work with digital cable or not. (I don't
> live there so want to find out what I need before I get there.) I
> don't really understand how the signal is different from whatever
> cable TV has been until now, but I suspect I would need a different
> card. Is that so?

If they have digital cable, then they have a set top box.  The cable
from the wall goes to that set top box, which decodes the signal, and
sends the video signal out to the TV.

You would take the cable destined to the TV and plug it in to the
PVR-150.  The trick, though, is getting the computer system to change
the channel on the set top box, since that is where the real "tuner"
is.  It entirely depends upon the type of set top box that they have as
to how you will be able to control it.  In some cases, you can get a
serial connection to the set top box and control the channel changes
that way, and in other cases you need an IR blaster.  Once you find out
the type (make & model) of set top box, you'll really know what you are
dealing with.

-Rich