scuffs:

The best feature of the homerun is on demand.  Watching other people fast forward through on demand content is actually kind of fun.  You also get to peak into what your neighbors are watching.

Whoa! Briefly, in layman's terms, how are you able to see what others are watching via the HDHR. (Not that I'd be INTERESTED in doing that, of course - just from a semi-technical point of view...)

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If you scan the channels you may pick up some blank channels those are the on demand channels. Its more of a novelty than anything that you can view it, since you are at the mercy of the person that actually ordered the program.

The on demand content usally comes unencrypted. So if your neighbor selects one of the on demand channels you may be able to watch what they are watching  but are subject to how they watch (FF/RW)

I will only get the major networks but that is really what I am intersted in anyway. I hate not being able to tune HD live so I am really hoping this is the solution. Although I have enjoyed Firestb, it is really not very reliable. Like everyone else, I am amazed that MS did not include a way to tune QAM channels, I really don't get it.

John,

This will work with getting hd live in mce. So it will do that as well as record. I have to point out that this is beta and that sometimes it takes a while for HDHR to tune a channel causing mce to display "no signal" this is fixed by going to another hd channel then back.

But its beta but for the most part works as advertised. So depending on your comfort level you might want to wait till they make it out of beta.

Someone wrote a QAM remap utility that works great and speeds up the setup process a LOT.

Heres the Thread link and a direct link to his site

The only thing that needs to be finished is multi tuner support and I will be one happy camper.  If only I could figure out where Sci-Fi was hiding, I would get rid of my cable boxes.

WooHoo!  Received my HDHR today at 7:30 pm from UPS.  Had it up and running in MCE 2005 by 10:00 pm.  The integration is awesome, although the configuration was a little challenging.  Works great! 

Now for that second tuner....

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Dan - O

Can someone put this in layman's terms so I can understand it?   What does this mean QAM support?  Is this so people with cable can trick their MCE computer into using the cable signals instead of antenna?   I read the whole forum, googled QAM and am still scratching my head....

For the purpose of this thread Qam is the unencrypted digital channels from your local cable provider. MCE can only tune (cable speaking) the analog (SD) channels. In order for MCE to receive digital channels (ie HDTV) you have to use an antenna (rabbit ears).

There are HDTV cards on the market that can tune Qam channels but HDHR works within MCE itself and not via a third party application. So if you are looking to get unencrypted digital tv from within MCE the HDHR is a great way to do this.

I will add again that it is currently in beta so depending on your comfort level of beta software/support you may or may not want to wait it out.

While those who can follow instructions can install the hardware/software to get it working it isnt a plug in and go application just yet.

First, wait a bit.  This is still Beta and you only get 1 tuner not 2, hopefully this will work all the way soon but not yet.

OTA stands for Over The Air.  Just like old style TV your local stations broadcast HD from towers somewhere near you.  The problem with OTA is access to those towers to recieve the signal.  Cable companies send HD over cable also.  They use a different way of "packaging" the HD signal.  Its called QAM.  MCE supports OTA HD but does not support QAM.  This thread is about a card that has allowed people to "Hack" MCE to think that a QAM signal is actually OTA.  It does this by converting the signal within the device then sending it to the machine using your network.  The driver then tells the computer its an OTA signal on the channel you told it to use. 

Right now it is a pretty technical driver installation process.  People are helping by writing programs to help sort out the hack, and only 1 of the 2 tuners are working.

If you need an analogy to help understand this I have thought of a few.

Just to add this.

The HDHomeRun will only display "Clear QAM" channels, not all QAM channels. Clear QAM are channels that are unencrypted, usually your local Network channels (maybe in Standard Definition and High Definition), shopping channels and local access. Some Cable companies may broadcast some of the basic cable channels too.

I have a Visio 42"LCD with a built in NTSC/ATSC QAM tuner.  I searched for channels and got like 12 HD channels, a movie channel and the rest of the standard chanels. 

The other day I took my DVICO Fusion HDTV 5 USB ATSC and QAM Tuner installed the software and hardware on one of my xp machines and tuned the channels and for some reason I could not tune all the HD chanels that my Visio's tuner could.  Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the replies guys, I get it now.

Chilump:

Your vizio TV tuner can tune QAM channels (unencrypted ones). It doesn't need any special drivers, it has everything it needs inside the TV.

Windows VISTA (and MCE 2005) cannot tune QAM channels with its media center BDA driver regardless of what tuner you use. Your tuner card you bought says QAM on it because the tuner company wrote special software that allows it to tune QAM channels in windows, but the catch is you have to use their software, not windows media center.

Microsoft has not given out a 'standard' approach on how to write QAM BDA drivers, so basically no tuners on the market can tune QAM channels through windows media center. HDHomeRun tricks windows media center into thinking that it is different type of tuner altogether (ATSC antenna), so it doesn't need a QAM capable BDA driver.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression microsoft has not given much effort in getting QAM working because of the pending cablecard/OCUR boxes soon to go out.

ecsrun,
Thx for your response.  I get the idea that QAM doesn't work with MCE 05 and Vista but what I did on my XP machine (not MCE) was install the software that came with my DIVICO Tuner and then try to tune into the same HD chanels that I was able to see in my VIZIO and I was unable to view the same channel on my XP machine.  Is there a paticular reason for this?

I think I offically have every tuner ever made in my house now...    maybe I should get cable so I can use this one :)  I hate the cable industry though.   maybe I'll luck out and theres no channel trap on the business internet line I have. 

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP