HP m8100y w/digital cable tuner - Page 8

I got my 8100y a while back, and I just went to the comcast office and they gave me a cable card. Work, and some storms that tied up comcast a little delayed me, but it was easy to set up the cable card with comcast over the phone.

For those of you using the HDHR, are you able to record your analog shows on the same media center your ocur is hooked up to, or do you record them on another media center?

The HDHR only supports ATSC (over-the-air digital) and Clear QAM (unencrypted digital cable) -- not analog. I have no trouble using my HDHR with two Digital Cable Tuners (a.k.a. OCURs). Vista Media Center treats the HDHR like two ATSC tuners even if they are tuning Clear QAM.

Can anyone give me some guidance on adding addtional usb ports to the rear of my case. I want to utilize the unused 1x4 headers on the motherboard and install a bracket in one of the openings between the case fan and power supply fan.

I have previously installed a modified eSata bracket at this location to run my 2 external hard drives.

The issue I have is all of the usb brackets I have seen have cables that utilize either a 2x5 header or a 1x5 header. I have not seen one with a 1x4 header connector. Are these available anywhere? I have spent considerable time searching the web for this.

Can a bracket with a 1x5 connector work here? It looks as if the 1x4 connector could actually have a 5th wire but it is left empty.

All of my PCI slots are in use so a card is not an option.

I know I could use an external expansion hub but would prefer something more permanent.

Thanks for your help.

Well... A Cablevision tech showed up on 13-Oct. I walked him through the process since he had never seen a Vista Media Center. He managed to find two working cable cards out of three. He lost his nerve when he called the front office to bind the cards. Another tech showed up on 4-Nov. Also no experience. He found two good cards out of four. He called the front office and activated the cards. Total process took 1.25 hours. Everything now works.

Next step... Linksys Media Extender as soon as they are released. I'll keep you posted.

Are you serious? I would love to hear more about that.

Did you want to jump up and rip the phone out of his hands, and do it yourself?

--Don

Absolutely !

I begged. I cajoled. I flattered. I threatened. Alas, to no avail. I did get a call back from his boss a couple days later promising to send out his best man. I wasn't in a big hurry, so I scheduled the visit for my convenience.

The "best guy" was busy on my day, so another guy showed up. He only brought two cards and one didn't work. He had to call a buddy to drop off more cards. Fortunately, I was able to coax the guy through the simple steps. I would have appreciated better documentation, but the link on the TV Setup screen to the Cablecard help page provided enough hints.

Apparently, the exact procedures vary between cable systems. Cablevision of Morris County New Jersey uses a smartcard that slides into a cablecard that slides into the digital cable tuner. The tech needs to write down and call in an amazing number of random digits to a clueless person at the head office who has to key the digits into some steam-driven mainframe. All of this has to be done with zero errors. There was never any indication in the debug traces that anything good ever happened. Just an endless stream of meaningless (and alarming) messages. I was prepared to slaughter a chicken and chant a prayer if necessary.

I serve as Principal Hardware Architect for a fortune 50 corporation. It is inconceivable to me that anyone could accidentally design a DRM system this bad. This feels like Cablelab's answer to a government mandate. You can force someone to do something against their will, but you can't force them to do it well.

All whining aside, it only took 1.25 hours from start to end once I found a compliant tech. I wish my cable company allowed me to do it myself. I understand that some cable companies allow this.

Check out my blog at http://dondumitru.spaces.live.com/ for my CableCard install experience.

Yours sounds like it was really close to mine.

Congrats on getting your system working!

--Don

I ascribe my success to your blog and the many like it that gave me the information necessary to succeed. I studied everything I could find, including the S1 Digital instructions. Thanks everybody!

You are welcome. I'm glad that you've had good success.

If you feel that have additional information to contribute to our community effort, we hope you'll try to pitch in. "We're all in this together, kid."

--Don

Preach it brother. I look forward to the day when media centers are common. Based on your experience, mine and many others, CableLabs is going to have to relax their paranoia before normal people can enjoy the technology.

Joe,

Just curious did you work out the issue of the MC remote not controlling the volume?

I currently am using the extreme upgrade card and optical to my yamaha receiver. I can now use the coaxial from the on board sound because my old dvd player is no longer needed.

I am considerring removing the audio card and installing a PCIe 4 port usb card or installing a 3rd tuner card.

I really don't have the free time to experiment at the moment and thought maybe you have figured it out?

Thanks for the update.

Has anyone successfully hooked up their m800y pc to a Sony XBR4 or XBR5 via hdmi from the 8500 gpu? I'm thinking of buying both and I was wondering if someone else has tried this combination.

Sorry foor the late response. I got an email notification from avsforum due to D53's post and saw you had asked me the status.

I never figured out the problem but it is now OBE (overcome by events).

That PC got to be a monster in size. 2 external ATI tuners,an HDHOMERUN sitting on top,a UPS PLUS all those wires and power bricks made for a messy looking thing in my living room where the TV is.

I watched a really great 45 minute Demo of Media Center by Microsoft on the new Internet TV Beta which really explained everything about Media Center.
From what I learned about extenders, I decided to hide 'Medusa' (it is what my wife started calling the PC ) in a closet and use a Meda Extender.


So, during my week off between Christmas and New Years,getting my Home Theater setup right was one of my projects. It took me over 2 full days to get this project done.
I just put the finishing touches on this project and it looks great because there is almost nothing to see.

I have an XBOX 360 being used as a media center extender and it is connected to my Denon AV receiver via HDMI. That gives me the 1080P Video to the TV and the sound to the 7.1 speakers.

The remote that comes with the HP IS a Media Center Remote so I taught my MX700 Remote from that and added in the Receiver stuff so I have a single remote to control everything.

I hope this post does not cause folks to miss D53's question but at least it causes another reminder email to read avsforum to go out.

Happy New Year

I have a HP 9300t with 6600 quad and 4gig ram plus 9500 gs 512 card with a ati digital cable card tuner.
My monitor is a samsung led 40 in 81f( I'm not rich got it for a little over a grand)
I been calling HP support to get my cable card tuner to run right(not choppy on HD) I went to the highest level and the support guy told me that I have too little ram and should get windows 64 bit it supports 8 gig of ram!
I told him to send the 64 bit windows update to me so I could upgrade because of the cable card certification I could not do it.
HP then told me I only paid for a 32 system and they could not send me a 64 bit!
Can anyone help?I hope a HP guy looks at this site and can get this done right.
All the computer's with cable card support come with 64 bit windows. HP stopped selling 32 bit digital card windows system at their store on the web!
P.s it is still under warranty!

That's just BS. S/He was trying to get rid of you.