Tony;

I have Comcast in Schaumburg, IL, with a Vista MCE and two M780 PCIe 1x cards. I installed the latest QAM drivers for the cards, used the ClearQAM tool to scan for un-encrypted channels. Then I matched those un-encrypted channels (all Digital and some in HD format, 720p or 1080i) to the proper channel listings/"Call Letters" in the AverMedia QAM tool. I used channel information like: WTTW-DT1 or WMAQ-DT as found from Zap2It or the SiliconDust website information. I then exported this information into MediaCenter. [NOTE: Make sure you have MediaCenter setup before exporting.]. I then deleted the channel: Enable DT 1001 from the Digital TV listings and made sure my  Guide Listings matched up for the various channels starting in the 1000's for digital TV.

So for the past two months my wife has loved watching recorded show in HD.

It does work. It does take some work to set it up. Sometimes the un-encrypted digital channels are changed by Comcast, but after your third time setting up the ClearQAM stuff it is like riding a bicycle. It took me that many times to do it in my sleep. One caveate I recommend is to Save the scanned information to a file so that it can be easily re-loaded into the ClearQAM tool for editing and/or re-exporting.

I did install a cable amplifier at my main cable connection before I started splitting it to all the rooms. This will help your Digital Signal strength for receiving and decoding digital channels.

I hope this helps and gives you hope for your setup.

-Tim

roxer:

I have that problem too.  TW cable in NC uses IRC, not STD or HRC.  Is there any chance this will get added to the tool?  Analog cable looks great.  Just need QAM working with IRC so it will see the channels.

Roxer, I think you may have finally answered for me what I have been asking forever.  I didn't realize TW uses IRC.  I live in Cary, NC and I suspect that is why I have never been able to get any channels to show up in my scans to date.  This has been so frustrating for me and from time to time I check this forum to see if anyone has the same issue...  I always wondered with the cable box right in front of my house and a new neighborhood why I wasn't even able to pull a single channel in the scans.. 

So I second the request for IRC.  BTW:  Haven't noticed any posts from Felix on here in a long time, although I haven't been reading regularly any more.  Is he still supplying information and updates?

Greg

---

Greg

SmoothMole:

Tony,

You are not likely to get all of the digital channels included in comcast's digital plan with the M780.  I have comcast in Seattle, and most of the digital channels are encrypted.  The M780 will only tune un-encrypted, or "clear" QAM.  If you have a digital TV you can determine which digital channels you will recieve.  To recieve all of the digital channels you will need a set-top-box (or a cablecard tuner).  There are no ways to directly connect the HD output of the set-top box to the M780, so you will get analog SD quality if using the M780 with a set top box.  There is a way to get HD channels from the set top box using firewire (but for recordings only, no live TV.)  Search firestb to find the thread if you are interested.  I am using the firestb approach, and it is hit and miss for successful digital recordings via firewire.

You can use VLC to watch live tv via firewire (and MPC I think).  Also the reason some of your recordings fail is because of the 5c encryption flag.  Basically it is a handshake between two HDCP devices to allow recording.  A particular channel will carry one of three flags.  They are copy free, copy once, and copy never.  To check a channels 'flag' hit the power button on the remote to shutdown the STB.  Then quickly hit the 'OK' button on the remote.  A guide will come up and you can view technical details of the STB.  I think number six has the 5c properties.  Please note that these are the properties only for the channel the STB was tuned to prior to turning it off. To check another channel just turn the STB back on, change to channel in question, and repeat steps above.  I have comcrap and live in western suburbs of chicago.  All but 3-4 HD channels have the copy free flag set so they can be recorded whenever. 

lorenct:

Tony;

I have Comcast in Schaumburg, IL, with a Vista MCE and two M780 PCIe 1x cards. I installed the latest QAM drivers for the cards, used the ClearQAM tool to scan for un-encrypted channels. Then I matched those un-encrypted channels (all Digital and some in HD format, 720p or 1080i) to the proper channel listings/"Call Letters" in the AverMedia QAM tool. I used channel information like: WTTW-DT1 or WMAQ-DT as found from Zap2It or the SiliconDust website information. I then exported this information into MediaCenter. [NOTE: Make sure you have MediaCenter setup before exporting.]. I then deleted the channel: Enable DT 1001 from the Digital TV listings and made sure my  Guide Listings matched up for the various channels starting in the 1000's for digital TV.

So for the past two months my wife has loved watching recorded show in HD.

It does work. It does take some work to set it up. Sometimes the un-encrypted digital channels are changed by Comcast, but after your third time setting up the ClearQAM stuff it is like riding a bicycle. It took me that many times to do it in my sleep. One caveate I recommend is to Save the scanned information to a file so that it can be easily re-loaded into the ClearQAM tool for editing and/or re-exporting.

I did install a cable amplifier at my main cable connection before I started splitting it to all the rooms. This will help your Digital Signal strength for receiving and decoding digital channels.

I hope this helps and gives you hope for your setup.

-Tim

Thats awsome I never had Guide for my un-encrypted channels but I dont get how to do it. I know it sounds dumb but can you or anyone make a guide for people like me that dont get it. I would love to have guide information for my Un-encrypted channels, thanks

---

Intel Q6600 G0 3.6ghz with Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme
Evga 780i
Evga Superclocked 7950GT 512mb
4gb G.Skill 2x2gb ram
WD 2x 120gb RAID 0
Creative Inspire P7800 7.1 speakers
Corsair 620HX
Cooler Master 690

Hello everyone,

I have the AverTV combo pci-e installed and I cannot get it to work with the Windows Media Center.  The AverTV software runs and works well, but I would prefer to run this out of the WMC.  When I try to run live TV in WMC, I get the "WMC has stopped working" error and restarts.  I have read this entire post and have not found anyone else having similiar problems.  I have all of the updated bios and drivers for my system...can anybody offer any advice?

Q6600, MSI P6N-SLI, 2GB OCZ, Vista Home Premium 32bit

Hi all, I just installed the latest drivers and the qam utility. When I scan in the qam utility on Unencrypted STD (HRC gives me a BSOD half way through and finds nothing prior to that) I find a lot of channels but if I highlight any of them on the left list nothing plays in the preview. If I manually set the channel and the select the frequency, it will play the channels fine (using silicondust list as a guide). Likewise, if I export my channels to media center, they also do not play. It's like the mappings are off or something. I've selected every channel over there though and none of them play, but if I manually set the channel things are fine. Does anyone have any idea why this is? Thanks.

 

oh, this is vista ultimate, latest Avermedia beta drivers and util, latest drivers for everything.

grosvenordesign:

Hello everyone,

I have the AverTV combo pci-e installed and I cannot get it to work with the Windows Media Center.  The AverTV software runs and works well, but I would prefer to run this out of the WMC.  When I try to run live TV in WMC, I get the "WMC has stopped working" error and restarts.  I have read this entire post and have not found anyone else having similiar problems.  I have all of the updated bios and drivers for my system...can anybody offer any advice?

Q6600, MSI P6N-SLI, 2GB OCZ, Vista Home Premium 32bit

I have the same problem and have for months now.  I have Vista 32 bit with all drivers, etc...i'm a high computer user and have not been able to solve the problem.  I put in a support request and Felix suggested that it might be a driver issue..which is not the case.  The problem is this:  When I resume from sleep, I cannot play live TV.  I can goto recorded shows, listings, DVD etc, but when I click on TV, Vista Media Center crashes and only option is to restart computer.  I think it may have to do with "privjob" or maybe my lan driver...not quite sure.  I did go through the registry settings for the device and tried a few adjustments...then reinstalled to reset them when I did not notice a difference.  I have so much software installed and this is the only problem I have...I understand it may be a Media Center issue...but there's got to be a fix to get the AverTV Combo to work right with MC.  Anyone have my problem?

I think you are experiencing the same problem I had.  I fixed it by setting the "Windows Media Center Receiver Service" to run using the local administrator account instead of the default account (I can't remember which one it was).  To change it, just pull up the services, double-click the "Windows Media Center Receiver Service", click on the Log On tab, and type in the credentials for your local admin account. See if that works for you.

I can't believe it.  I now have my QAM up and running after having the card installed in my machine for about 6 months.  A while back I had considered that I may have had a board conflict or something hardware related, but never took the time to try switching.  The other day I finally decided to try it after reading Felix's suggestion to try the Aver non vmc software to test.  On running that test, I had a system lock and no channels show up which was similar to my experience using the QAM utility.

Needless to say, 10 minutes later with my card in the only other pci express slot on my machine and a scan and I have 42 channels.  Lots of overlap and I suppose I now need to figure out what is what and if I need them all, but the quality is great.

I appreciate the support on the forum and from Felix.  Also, to anyone having an experience like mine (e.g., no scanned services showing up and/or system locking), try switching your card port.  I believe my hardware conflict was between my video and my AverTV card.

Greg

---

Greg

I can't believe it.  I now have my QAM up and running after having the card installed in my machine for about 6 months.  A while back I had considered that I may have had a board conflict or something hardware related, but never took the time to try switching.  The other day I finally decided to try it after reading Felix's suggestion to try the Aver non vmc software to test.  On running that test, I had a system lock and no channels show up which was similar to my experience using the QAM utility.

Needless to say, 10 minutes later with my card in the only other pci express slot on my machine and a scan and I have 42 channels.  Lots of overlap and I suppose I now need to figure out what is what and if I need them all, but the quality is great.

I appreciate the support on the forum and from Felix.  Also, to anyone having an experience like mine (e.g., no scanned services showing up and/or system locking), try switching your card port.  I believe my hardware conflict was between my video and my AverTV card.

Greg

---

Greg

peskypescado:

I think you are experiencing the same problem I had.  I fixed it by setting the "Windows Media Center Receiver Service" to run using the local administrator account instead of the default account (I can't remember which one it was).  To change it, just pull up the services, double-click the "Windows Media Center Receiver Service", click on the Log On tab, and type in the credentials for your local admin account. See if that works for you.

Awesome! Problem fixed.  It figures that's the last thing I didn't try yet...thanks Peskypescado!  You answered a problem Aver or even Felix couldn't.  Thanks man!

not shure if anybody else has had this problem, but everything went fine exported guide and everything , when i go to add missing channels i see one channel in that list but once i say save and add all those channels one of them never shows up in the guide listings. does anybody understand why???

I'm seeing a newer problem with my VMC + PCI-E card... has anyone else experienced this?

After having the system on for about a week, VMC hangs when selecting any channel (analog or digital).  I've had this card in for 18 months and only recently have started experiencing this kind of hang.   The blue circle will spin for about 120 seconds, and then break out to the main menu.  Going in again creates the same problem.  In the end, only a reboot seems to clear up the problem.

I'm guessing this is driver related?  I'm using driver 2.5.0.27 from 4/14/08.

Any info greatly appreciated.  If DVR is not reliable (it didn't record 3 shows while I was on vacation!), then it doesn't matter how great the technoogy is.  It needs to work reliably!

Thanks,
Jon

I have had relative success with this tuner.  Out of box, worked perfectly with vista media center.  Installed the beta clear qam drivers and followed directions to the letter.  viola, picked up about 185 clear qam channels.  The issue that I'm having is that after I mapped the channels listings to the qam channels, if I run an update on the EPG, I lose all my channel listings.  I have noticed that if I would do the update daily, I wouldn't lose the listings (at least I never noticed), but if I wait to do the update 2 days or so - I'd lose everything.  I have disabled opportunitic scanning via registry edit and I still lose everything.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

I have been using these beta drivers for a long time and havnt had many problems until now.  everything worked fine until i moved and had to re run the QAM scan tool. I have tried it in unencriped only and all mode and it finds channels just fine but when i click the export button it always says faild to open file.  I know that many other people have experirenced this but i couldn't find the solution.  I have vista ultimate 64 bit with the latest drivers.  Please help.