I received my Velocity system last week.  It's a core2duo 3ghz, 2g ram, w/ Nividia8800.

When I received it last week Comcast sent me their tech w/ experience w/ cablecard installations.  It looks liked it was going to work great then during MCE setup it would not identify the 2nd tuner.  So after a call in to VM w/ Comcast present and a serires of tuner tests we realized that one of the ATI tuner's was bad.  So, VM sent me a new ATI card.

Until the new card came Comcast left me one card in the working tuner so I could watch my HD channels.  The thing did not work on any HD channels or any other channels besides the network channels and non HD HBO channels.  If I changed it to espn, it would lock up or display a green screen.  I lived with it with lots of restarts and only watching previously mentioned channels.

Yesterday, I received the new tuner for VM.  I removed the non working one and installed the new one.  It was identified in device manager and in MCE it too found the second tuner.  Comcast came by yesterday evening and we inserted two of the same motorola cards and we ran through the cable card set up.  It displayed both of the cards ID numbers and other numbers.  He called them in and on their end it was showing everything was working properly. 

He tested to see if the second tuner was working by recording and then changing the channel.  It didn't work at first but, after a restart or two both tuners were working!  Then we changed channels and we got the same type of action I was getting previously.  No HD channels working it would go there for a second then freeze.  That was the same for most other channels too.  The networks worked and Non-HD pay channels.  Comcast checked the signal strangth of all the cable runs in my home and they were all getting a great signal.  He even went in my basement and put on new ends to all of the splitter box coaxial and tested their strenght and everyting tested w/ good strength. 

I called VM today and no one is in that knows anything about CableCard trouble shooting.  Said to call back in Monday.  This is turning into a major Headache.  I've had it now for two weeks and the CableCard funtionality is terrible.  Has anyone else went through these types of headaches?  Any suggestions to remedy this?

Thanks for any an all help!

I had many of the same headaches with my VM Grand Theater setup with Comcast.

The 2 things that helped me the most were:

1. Uninstalling the AVG Antivirus that I had installed immediately after receiving it..  It's widely believed that the Digital Cable Tuners have a problem with ALL AV programs.
   
2. Disabling the 2 DCT Network Connections from Windows Firewall.  For me, this was Network Connections 2 & 3. 
   

The problems with the premium channels sound similar to what I was having.  When the tech came out, I told them they had to completely wipe my configuration at their end and start over like it was a new install.  They were reluctant to do that, but after two hours of messing around, they did just that and it finally started working.

The key to getting the premium channels is whether the EMM count goes up to over 39.  That is shown in different screens depending on which type of cards they put in.  The last time they were here, they ended up putting in 2 multistream cards and it's working fine now.  The strange thing for me is that initially the EMM count went way up, but now I never get anything at all on the EMM count but all my channels (including HBO and all the HD channels) work just fine.

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Velocity Micro Cinemagix Grand Theater, C2Q, 2GB, 2 TB, 3 DCT, 2 HDHomeRun
Homebuilt C2Q, 2 GB, 1.5 TB, HVR-1600, FireSTB
Dell E1705, T7600, 2GB, 250GB, HVR-950
WHS, WRT600N, DMA-2100, DMA-2200, XBox360

Thanks for the tip.  I went in and disabled my antivirus software - Kaspersky.  Everything is now working perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I now get all HD channels and all others.  Sweet! 

Thanks for the advice. 

Make sure you have the newest firmware on those tuners also, not sure if VM is shipping them updated or not.

Glad you got it working, I love mine!

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My Media Center Blog

What did you two VM owners end up using for internet protection anti-virus that didn't affect the tuners?

I tried to enable some of the internet protection settings and left the firewall disabled and it still screwed something up w/ the tuners.  I had audio but no video. 

wzabka:

What did you two VM owners end up using for internet protection anti-virus that didn't affect the tuners?

I tried to enable some of the internet protection settings and left the firewall disabled and it still screwed something up w/ the tuners.  I had audio but no video. 

 

Right now, nothing.  The VM box is a dedicated MC for me and is used exclusively for TV.  I very rarely use it to get on the internet and then it was only to resolve the problems I was having.  Now that it's functioning as expected, it goes back to being a dedicated Media Center box.

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Velocity Micro Cinemagix Grand Theater, C2Q, 2GB, 2 TB, 3 DCT, 2 HDHomeRun
Homebuilt C2Q, 2 GB, 1.5 TB, HVR-1600, FireSTB
Dell E1705, T7600, 2GB, 250GB, HVR-950
WHS, WRT600N, DMA-2100, DMA-2200, XBox360

I think that's what I'll keep it as too.  I do go online briefly to capture dvd cover art and movie info but that's about it maybe the occasional download for upgrades.  I'll just have to keep it at that. 

Nothing here also.  The box is dedicated for media center and is in the living room and it never accesses the internet.  If I need something on it I download from another machine and then copy it over to my home server or directly to the media center.

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My Media Center Blog

If you guys don't have internet access of your machines how do you get the guide updated?

wzabka:

If you guys don't have internet access of your machines how do you get the guide updated?

I think you misunderstood. We are saying that we don't have any AV software or firewall setup on our machines.  We aren't too concerned because we don't use the machines to access the internet. It is still connected to the internet and still gets regular guide updates. Mine is a dedicated Media Center machine now.

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Velocity Micro Cinemagix Grand Theater, C2Q, 2GB, 2 TB, 3 DCT, 2 HDHomeRun
Homebuilt C2Q, 2 GB, 1.5 TB, HVR-1600, FireSTB
Dell E1705, T7600, 2GB, 250GB, HVR-950
WHS, WRT600N, DMA-2100, DMA-2200, XBox360

So, you don't cruise around on the internet.  OK.

Did you download SP1 on you VM? 

 

wzabka:

So, you don't cruise around on the internet.  OK.

Did you download SP1 on you VM? 

 

Right the only internet the media center sees is guide downloads, IE or anything else never gets fired up on the box.

Yep, been running SP1 for about 6 weeks now (since it was released to beta testers) and haven't had any issues.  If you are using an Nvidia card you'll need to re-install the drivers for your card, if you don't you'll get some nice multi-colored snow when you try to watch TV.

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My Media Center Blog

So do you download SP1 on another computer and then burn it to disk to upload?  Where do you download SP1? 

I'm such a noob at this...

By the way, it's been isolated to one of the tuners that won't pick up five of the HD channels.  Should I get a new tuner or look to make sure it's upfated w/ the latest firmware?

 

Thanks,

Brown & Cross for all your help

Download the standalone SP1 installer here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b0c7136d-5ebb-413b-89c9-cb3d06d12674&displaylang=en&lc=1033

I would definitely check the firmware on you tuners, and don't rely on the tuner web page displays.  One of mine was displaying 1.16 firmware on the web page and the tuner actually had 1.14!  I ran the upgrade tool and that's when I discovered the problem.

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Velocity Micro Cinemagix Grand Theater, C2Q, 2GB, 2 TB, 3 DCT, 2 HDHomeRun
Homebuilt C2Q, 2 GB, 1.5 TB, HVR-1600, FireSTB
Dell E1705, T7600, 2GB, 250GB, HVR-950
WHS, WRT600N, DMA-2100, DMA-2200, XBox360

wzabka:

By the way, it's been isolated to one of the tuners that won't pick up five of the HD channels.  Should I get a new tuner or look to make sure it's upfated w/ the latest firmware?

If you're sure the firmware is up to date then yes I would get a new tuner, just remember you'll have to have comcast re-pair the cablecard to the new tuner when you get it.

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My Media Center Blog