Hi, I am new to VMC and I don't know how I can get my vista media centre to recieve the signal for my cable tv. I figure it is possible but I am clueless! I know I need to buy a tuner card for my PC, is it as simple as that? And will it have the relevent sockets or will I have to buy connectors?

Regards

Duggie

Do you mean Virgin cable as in UK cable formerly NTL/Telewest? If so then there are two possibilities:- 1) Buy an analog tuner and plug the output from the Set Top Box into the analog tuner, wire up remote sender (comes with the Microsoft MCE remote) so MCE can change channel. 2) Some DVB-C (cable) tuners such as the floppy-dtv C can replace the cable box, this means you get a better picture quallity and don't have a Set top box to worry about. Not sure of the state of the drivers for Vista yet though. Check out www.firedtv.co.uk. Please bear in mind that you will not be able to use the video on demand, the red button or the text through media center though.

thanks for the speedy responce dave.

I have ordered virgin cable (virgin media - formerly NTL) and yes they will be sending a set top box with it as far as I am aware. But I guess you are saying that running the cable into my pc instead of the set top box will be beneficial or necessary. Which is good cos I didn't go for the new HD box that they do. (May consider in the future)

I take it from what you said, that the cable tuners are different from the tuners that recieve the signal from a standard coaxial cable.

I have currently got the tv/pc hooked up through a pci cable and did not want to go out and buy a tuner to get in home and find it didn't work. especially as opening the pc will invalidate my warranty and I just baught the machine last week. I have an AMD dual processor, it seems quick enough to me for other content/media.

I currently have a *** graphics card on the machine so you are suggesting an upgrade to a better tuner? Do I need more than one as I noted that a lot of people have said they have up to 4 tuners!!! Is this so you can tape more simultaneous content?

If I cannot use the red button or on demand stuff then will I be able to relocate the STB to another room?

Again I appreciate your response and would love dearly to make my couch the centre of my world lol

Duggie

The simplest way to setup is to plug the svideo output from the STB the standard analog tuner you possible have in your machine already, then you will need to connect the Infra Red transmitter to the front of the STB or MCE will not be able to change the channel on the box. This will get you up and running. If you use a new tuner you will not be able to use the STB in another room as you would need to put the subscription card into the tuner, so the STB will not be able to decode anything. If you use the STB and connect that to the MCE then you will be able to use another output from that to the TV if you wanted to use the red button, on demand stuff etc, you still would not be able to use this through MCE. If you want to be able to record whilst viewing a different channel you will need two tuners, two subsctiption cards (and if you use the STB way two STB's)

Ahh I see now, so I can run the arial into the STB then into the PC tuner then into the TV via a s-video cable. I get the impression that they make dual tuner cards so the system would be pretty good if I got 2 dual tuners.

I am resigned to the fact that I will have to upgrade the video card but I will look into that myself anyway, and I gather that running this through 1gb ram is not so good so I will look into getting another 1gb ram. I am running all this, by the way, through a 32" HD ready Samsung LCD

I looked into internal/external tuners and if I am right I need an internal tuner if I am to record, pause, rewind and so on so I take on board your advice on tuners.

So in summary, in order to get the system set up I need the following components:

1 or 2 tuner cards (DVB-C is the type and floppy-dtv-c is the part) (each additional tuner means an additional recording source)

1 s-video cable to link tv to pc

1 better video card (is there a digital card or will I only get this quality through the STB?)

1 MCE remote control (My comp did not come with one, are there vista compatable ones on the market yet or is this irrellavent?)

and finally, I will need to go to www.firedtv.co.uk to look for updated drivers for windows vista to be able to handle the tuners.

this lot will enable me to use the set top box direct through my tv for full usage, and also to use the functionallity of MCE to record and pause etc.

wow! Dave you have been a saint mate. This should set me up rather impressively and give me everything I wanted out of the system. I wish there was someone on hand in the shop when I baught the PC in the first place so I could have got all of this in the one box when I made the purchase.

Thanks a lot mate I appreciate your information and will get straight to work (as soon as funds arrive of coarse)

Kind regards

Duggie (a satisfied newbie to the forum world)

P.S. Is there a way I can rate your advice or anything to reflect your help?)

You may also need a device to convert the Infra red codes attached to the front of the STB, I currently have the configuration you are looking at but I am not sure if, now Virgin have taken over they are using a new type of STB but below is the link to the site to get the device (may explain it better then me too).

I have 2 Hauppauge 150MCE Analog tuners connected to 2 STB's via Scart to Composite leads.  I have not looked into the FireDTV yet (just browsed the site) and it does look expensive although I am sure the quality would be worth it but this also depends whether the cards are supported yet.

On a side note you can still use the Red Button/On demand TV but as you may have guessed you need to use the original remote on the STB which if it is another room can be difficult (I know through experience).

http://www.redremote.co.uk/

These are two seperate ways, stb or the floppyDTV. If you go the STB way then you can only use 1 tuner per STB (as a STB can only output 1 channel at once), you will also need 1 subscription per STB. If you go the floppy-dtv way then you will need 1 floppy-dtv per subscription card. Either way if you have 1 tuner (analog or floppy-dtv) you will only be able to watch/record 1 chanel at once. If you get 2 tuners (analog or floppy-dtv) you will need to pay for two subscriptions from virgin and you will then beable to watch one thing and record another. I am not sure if the vista drivers for the floppy-dtv have been released yet or if they support the CAM (card slot) in vista yet. Without support for the CAM then you can not view encrypted channels (most of them) I had this system setup with 1 floppy-dtv tuner for a while, then sacked it off and went to freeview with three tuners.

The quality of the picture for the floppy-dtv's is very very good, better than the stb's i have had from telewest. I think you do not need the redeye with the new stb's that are being used, but this brings up other problems of training the mce how to send the signal, i think it's a samsung box, do a search for the problems and fixes people have come across.

dave2318,

I've looked at FireDTV but backed off due to cost and not knowing if it actually would work at the end of it. When you set yours up was it easy? How do you map the channels between the MCE and the cable frequencies? Everything basically!

Don't suppose you had a guide to setting this up did you?

Thanks,

Mark

 

I used it on MCE2005 and as far as i can remember i had to do a scan for the channels, it picked them all up then i had to fix some guide problems. The floppy-dtv's are rather expansive particularly when you also have to buy a CAM so you can put the card in the slot. They have a floppt-dtv S (for sky) that works the same, aparently these are the same to setup, install driver, put card in slot scan for channels in MCE, then fix any guide issues (some channels are not mapped properly).

FWIW, here's how I connected my NTL (now Virgin) cable box:

Scart out from the cable box to...

Scart to svideo adaptor (it's a scart plug with three phono plugs coming out from it - video, left audio, right audio), the plug is stamped OUT (if it had been stamped IN it would have been an input adaptor)...

Triple phono lead to the...

Input sockets of a Hauppauge PVR 150 MCE analogue tuner card.  There might be better versions of the card, and there might be better manutacturers - but that's a commonly used card.  The 'MCE' is important.  That means it comes with an MCE compatible remote and an IR blaster to change your channels for you.

The connection from your PC to your TV will depend on your equipment, but you have all that already so you should be able to work something out,

When it comes to configuring MCE:

- The config process will find an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for you

- I had to manually enter a channel number because the scanning process didn't find it.  My NTL box is on channel 52.

Getting the IR blaster to work is a major pain.  Because of the way the STB works, the default set up will not change channels correctly if the channel number contains a repeated character.  So 101 will change fine, but 444 definitely won't.

You therefore have to 'fool' the blaster into sending the correct characters.  See: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/142366/ShowThread.aspx for a discussion on how to do this.  Read through to the end because there's a couple of red herrings.

Finally, if you are expecting to be able to use MCE to watch and record both Freeview and Virgin you are going to be disappointed.  MCE can't cope with that.  To get around the problem I use a different media centre (GB-PVR) to watch and record Freeview.

Hope that helps,

Andy