[JAYS10]

Big dilemma, i currently have Verizon FIOS (STB). Never had any experience with a tv tuner card so while i was at circuit city i picked up a hauppauge WinTV 1600. Now My fios is usually connected via HDMI to my TV for the best quality, which is pretty damn good. Now i connected my STB with my TV Tuner Card via coaxial cable, and it SUCKED...yeah i know coaxial is probally the worst type of connection to use. Now it was suggest to use the Svideo, which showed a good difference but nothing compared to HDMI. my question is Which card should i be looking at?? I've searched and there really isnt any HDMI input cards that are cheap, nor too many people who have used them for HTPC setups. Coaxial, S-Video, Component are all out of the question for me, dont want to seem picky but if its down to that i'll keep the FIOS on the HDMI straight to my TV.


need help here guys! I've been searching and searching but still no luck!! Any other ways around?

 

[walford]

You definitly get very poor quality using SD 480i resolution from your HD STB using the coax or S-video connection to the analog tuner side of your 1600 card since all of the HD programs are downscaled.

You can use the digital tuner on your 1600 card to receive the clear QAM channels from your cable supplier using the Hauppauge WinTV application.

 

[JAYS10]

picked up a ton of QAM channels, Quality is like a normal TV unfortunately.

 

[walford]

How do you know you picked up dozens of clear QAM channels and not just analog channels. What are the channel numbers of clearQAM channels you received. Most cable suppliers only provide local broadcast channels in clear QAM but many still supply their SD digital channels which they have dozens of also in clear QAM.

For example my cable supplier supplies channels 2-69 in analog and channels 100 to 600 in SD QAM and only channels 700-800 are in HD QAM and only about 8 of these are in clear QAM

For HD clear QAM you need to be looking for channel nubmers such as 2-1, 5-1, 7-1 etc. Also you need to realize that many daytime programs are filmed with SD cameras so are still in SD when broadcast over HD capable channels.

 

[JAYS10]

when scanning there are a few options, i select either:


ATSC Sources

Clear QAM Sources


The Coaxial cable coming from outside is plugged in directly into the Digital Tuner, no STB,


when auto scanning with the ATSC source, no Results


When auto scaning with the Clear QAM source I get results it displays name, channel number, digital channel, Physical Channel


Example


QAM-524 2524 0.0 7


being..


Name: QAM-524

Channel Number: 2524

Digital Channel: 0.0

Physical Channel: 7


running another scan as we speak under clear QAM, then going to connect the STB back and run a few scans

 

[JAYS10]

Update.


Can't find any channels with the STB plugged in + STB to digital Tuner., except that of analog with STB to Analog Tuner.


Found a couple threads, a few people have picked up HD Channels using QAM and verizon FIOS, maybe i'm doing something wrong?

 

[Fam Money]

It's not ideal to connect a STB to the input of of the tuner card. It sounds like you initially wanted to capture what was displayed on your STB but then switched to wanting to capture Clear QAM.


If you want to capture QAM I'd suggest adding a 3-way splitter at the cable source then running a cable to each input.(STB, 1600 analog + digital) Make sure it's a quality splitter with RG6 cable.


Now if you want to capture what's on your STB, you'd want to look into the Hauppauge HD-PVR which uses component connections from your STB to record HD video.

 

[walford]

No you won't get any digital signals from the STB plugged into the 1600 digital tuner since all COAX output from the STB are analog.

You can only get clear QAM shannels from your cable service to your ditgital tuner if the cable signal is connected directly to the digital tuner. Best using a splitter as described by FamM