[martini_thief]

Long time troll first time beggar of help!


Warning!:

I have had a beer or two writing this so if it's hard to understand, try drinking a beer, that should clear things up

The Goal;


Use computer for the cable input, if needed use the xbox to pick up the WMC interface (is there a better UI?) and extend it to the TV in direct 5.1 dolby, with HD resolutions. Record HD QAM channels while I sleep & pause live HDTV. I'm Basically wanting a HD version of Tivo, that plays my .avi backups on my plasma with a cool UI and a simple remote.


Here is my current setup;


Comp:

Vista Ultimate 32

Asus MZN32 SLI Deluxe (optical out from built in sound)

AMD 4500 X2

2gb Ram

150GB Raptor X HDD

500GB WD HDD

Asus 8800gt 1GB (no sound out)

Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 SB0550 (computer uses all audio out from sound card for it's own 5.1 sound, no optical out)

Hauppauge WinTV PVR-508


T.V. :

Samsung PN50A550 (1080p)


Extender:

Xbox 360


Service:

Comcast extended basic cable (Plasma built in tuner picks up 480 channels from the RF input (mostly digital repeats and a handful of true of HD from 720p - 1080i))

No antenna, no cable box, just a rf cable.


Extras:

Denon AVR-2105 (7.1 receiver, no HDMI/component input or output)

Toshiba DR-400 (upconverting DVR with no tuner)

5.1 speaker setup


Part of that goal that's not happening from WMC;


No 5.1 sound, no QAM, No digital signals, Horrid picture quality, no avi playback, no HD content recording & no remote for WMC (xbox controller sux as a remote). I'd also like to be rid of the DVD player (comp has a DVD drive) but keep the upconversion.


What I think;


Once I upgrade the capture card I'll be good to go. (WMC from PC to xbox360 to TV.)


What I don't understand after 3 hours of research and forum reading;


#1 What capture card supports what I want, through WMC and if needed through the Xbox360 on my TV (Computer is close enough to run cables to TV & A/V receiver).


#2 Why I don't get 5.1 sound from the xbox, but I do get 5.1 from the TV (xbox360 is connected via hdmi to TV, TV is connected to the receiver via a optical cable ( the xbox options are set to 5.1)).


To much for a first post?


Thanks in advance,

Martini

 

[tomdahlberg]

1) Maybe look at the SiliconDust HdHomeRun (dual tuners)

2) Buy another optical cable and pass audio directly to the receiver from the Xbox, your tv might not output 5.1 audio over optical(not sure?).


Not a HTPC expert but I thought that there was a "tv pack" for VMC that you need to download for QAM tuning. Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[martini_thief]

the TV does output 5.1 over optical, on it's own. However I have to figure out how to get the 5.1 from xbox through the TV to the receiver.

I will look into the optical cable idea for the xbox360 but I have not found an optical out on the case. Maybe its a proprietary HDMI/optical cable from Microsoft.


SiliconDust HdHomeRun seems to be recommended everywhere so I guess I should start checking eBay for it. Thanks for the Help!

 

[Derek K.]

buy an hdhomerun. then you can choose to use the tv pack or not for qam. you know you'll probably only get the locals in hd, right?


I'd bet your tv only outputs dd on the digital out when using cable. It probably doesn't pass through dd from the hdmi input. just run another optical cable from the xbox to the receiver.

 

[martini_thief]

The Audio Problem:

The Xbox360 didn't pass Dolby Digital through the TV & has no optical cable output.

Solved by purchasing a optical/RCA Audio adapter ( http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x...60hdmiavcable/ )



The Video Problem:


Ok the hdhomerun seems great and not great all the same time to me...

#1 its big/ugly and sits outside the comp.

#2 its network attached and I don't want to buy a bigger switch for it

#3 I already have extenders so I don't need a NAS tuner

#4 Slurps up network bandwidth

#5 The last thing I need is TV on my cell phone


What I like about hdhomerun

#1 it will use both tuners as digital

#2 TV on my cell phone


I just want to have a pci-e card that picks up digital tv from comcast (including the local QAM HD channels) and lets me record one digital channel while watching a different digital or HD channel (I want to be able to record the one channel, and pause the channel I am watching IE: get a beer and not miss the game, while recording another game).


I could care less about OTA channels (digital/HD or not) or analog channels (IE: channel 13 = don't care about, channel 13-1 = do care about) I'll never use an antenna.


I am only going to use Vista Media Center as my UI.


There is oddly a lot of incomplete information about this set up...


It seems to me that every TV tuner should grab digital cable signals (QAM) and let you record one channel and watch a different channel at the same time. Especially, since in a month, there will be no more analog channels being broadcast.


The WinTV-HVR-2250 I think does this?


The AVerMedia AVerTV Combo does not?


I have read poor comments on the WinTV-HVR-2250's picture quality.


So, what else is left?


Surely there are other people on this forum that want to, and have, recorded one football game in HD and while simultaneously watching a second game, and then pause the second game to grab a beer. I am sure they didn't sacrifice quality to do it either. What card did they use? Is there a list of cards that can do this? I want the cheapest card I can find that will do this.



Is that long enough for ya?

-Martini