So - I'm going a bit crazy on this one. In my foolish naievity I thought that I could use my PC as a PVR with basic (very basic) cable from comcast and an HD tuner card. I'm still desperately clinging to the hope. I don't care about fancy channels - I just want the local ones in HD. (and i can't put up an ariel)

Firstly, although I can scan for channels in MCE - I can't actually watch any as the screen is always black and there is no sound. The signal strength is always the lowest possible. I'm assuming this is because the signal I'm getting from Comcast is QAM and MCE doesn't support QAM.

I did finally figure out how to get a signal using AverMedia Center - after downloading the XP32 bit drivers (for my vista ultimate 32 bit OS install). It seem,s these are the only ones that will work. I can't get an EPG though which kind of defeats my chances of having a PVR

Now - I've seen drivers to get MCE to work with clear QAM - but none work with my setup. Every time I try I just get the black screen with no sound. Is that it for me or has anybody else got this to work ?

I'd appreciate any advice.

thanks

Chris

I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think that card is supported. Maybe when the next VMC update comes out and native clear QAM support is added, but for now you have to stick with cards that the vendor provides a solution like the HDhomeRun or a few others.

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Ben
How good can it be, if it isn't HD?
Engadget HD

bjdraw:

I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think that card is supported. Maybe when the next VMC update comes out and native clear QAM support is added, but for now you have to stick with cards that the vendor provides a solution like the HDhomeRun or a few others.

I own a A180 card, I have been looking for ages for something to make QAM work inside of VMC or MCE. There is no driver or support from Aver, so if someone knows how to hack it in, I would  be interested....

Short answer: Nope, no driver or support, not possable

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

Thought so.

I know aver released some drivers on their ftp site. I would have thought they could release the drivers for the A180 too

 

Chris123:

Thought so.

I know aver released some drivers on their ftp site. I would have thought they could release the drivers for the A180 too

 

I played with them (even the newest drivers) for about 2-3 nights (on and off), even attempted to hack the m780 driver into the A180 driver to see if I could get some results (not thinking it would work but, what the heck). Never got more than a black screen, no video or audio. (and some blue screens of death)

I agree with you, they should of made a driver but, I did even e-mail their support and got a reply "no plans". It's a older card, so I don't forsee them supporting it.

More details on what I did....

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/252190.aspx

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

I've got the A180 installed in my machine.  I also have the TV Pack that everyone is goosie about.  It works like a champ.  The TV Pack allows native QAM and after scanning for channels, it integrates the HD channels in the guide. 

Very slick, easy to do and works pretty well.  The A180 doesn't pick up as many QAM channels as my HDHomerun, but it gets the major ones.

Tim

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Home Made HTPC:
Asus PB5, QUAD6600, 3G DDR2, NV8600GT, 1.5 TB Raid5 HD, DVD-DL, 2-HVR2250s, 1-HDHomerun, 1-AverHD A180, and Vista Ultimate.

Tim, Can you please let us know which driver version you are using with the A180? Also was their anything special, outside of the TV Pack install, that you did in order to enable QAM?

I just let vista do the walking I didn't install any drivers from AverMedia at all.  When I get home tonight, I'll look and see what driver version numbers are with it.

Once the OS recognized the card, I open VMC and went through the tuner setup.  It saw I had 4 analog tuners and 1 digital tuner (I left the hdhomerun disconnected in order to see if the A180 would work)... clicked a coulple of ok's and let it scan for channels.  It found 10 and put them in the guide.  A very painless operation.

When I connected the HDHR, vista saw those too and added them (4 analog and 3 digital )....but the drivers I have for them don't work with TV Pack, it says it does, but when it tries to tune the channel, I just get a black screen, so the HDHR is not connected right now... I just read that they have new drivers out that work with the TV Pack, so I'll have to try then out soon.

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Home Made HTPC:
Asus PB5, QUAD6600, 3G DDR2, NV8600GT, 1.5 TB Raid5 HD, DVD-DL, 2-HVR2250s, 1-HDHomerun, 1-AverHD A180, and Vista Ultimate.

I yanked an A180 out of my mce2005 box, and threw it in my vista machine where I had installed tv pack.

I installed default drivers from avermedia, ran set up.  It detected 1 clear QAM tuner.  0 channels were found during scan, but I went to silicondust's web site and looked up the qam channel #'s for my cable system.  In guide setup, there has been a new add qam channel option added.  I added the 1st one, went into edit it to get correct guide listings and immediately it started previewing in the background.

I get locals, espnhd, espn2hd, g4 and versus after entering in the correct channel information.

Jim_IT:

I get locals, espnhd, espn2hd, g4 and versus after entering in the correct channel information.

Those are clearQAM channels on your cable service? Wow!

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HP M9300T HTPC
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Q9300 2.5ghz Quad-core 1333mhz FSB
4gb DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM
ViXS PureTV-U 48B0 Tuner Card
Hauppauge HVR-2250 Tuner Card
nVidia 8600GT w/512mb DDR3 VRAM
Linksys WT160 Wireless N Router
Linksys DMA2200 Extender

Wow...  Makes me want to try it too! I have an A180, plus a Twinhan PV3250 and an ADS InstantHDTV in another mediacenter box.

I wonder if I could get QAM and what channels I would get in my area.....

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Click for Pics and Specs

After looking at the silicondust web site, and seeing what qam channels are available from my cable provider - looks like all I'd get is ESPNHD and all the digital music channels (like 80+ music channels).  Big whoop. :(

Oh well. Would still be cool though.

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Click for Pics and Specs

update: I went back into silicondust's website and entered the qam64 channels for MTVU and ESPNEWS.

The only thing that sux is that charter used to broadcast vod unencrypted, including porn.  I guess they started encrypting vod.  Damn!!!

Araltd:

After looking at the silicondust web site, and seeing what qam channels are available from my cable provider - looks like all I'd get is ESPNHD and all the digital music channels (like 80+ music channels).  Big whoop. :(

Oh well. Would still be cool though.

Yeah, I looked at mine and the only channel I'd get via QAM that I don't get OTA is Mojo. One lousy HD channel that I never watch anyway. :(

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HP M9300T HTPC
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Q9300 2.5ghz Quad-core 1333mhz FSB
4gb DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM
ViXS PureTV-U 48B0 Tuner Card
Hauppauge HVR-2250 Tuner Card
nVidia 8600GT w/512mb DDR3 VRAM
Linksys WT160 Wireless N Router
Linksys DMA2200 Extender

Already had the A180 installed with the latest drivers from Avermedia's website.  Installed TV Pack on a pre-existing install of Vista Home Pro.  It cleared out my recording and TV setting.  Did the TV setup and everthing and it found my ATI Theater 550 Pro analog card and my Aver A180 card as cable clear QAM.  It didn't find any QAM channels, but I entered them in manually and selected the corresponding analog channel and combined them.  Everything works great!!!

Quick question.  Where is the setting to tell it to record from the digital card or the analog card?  I have two recordings at the same time and both are on both the analog and digital channels.  I want to specifically choose one to be on the analog card and one to be on the digital card but don't know how.  Thanks.