Hi all

I currently have my HTPC set up to use Freeview with a dual tuner DVB-T card, however I am looking at using my Virgin Media TV on the media center.

I know you can set this up using the output of the STB into the HTPC and use the IR blaster to send the signals. However after some investigation I have found it may be possible to use a DVB-C card to connect the Cable directly to my machine bypassing the STB, but I cannot find any firm information on this. I have found some pictures on a forum where a guy has NTL channels in his guide and has some images of the actual playback.

Does anyone know what I would need to do this?

MCE doesn't support DVB-C, though I dare say there are cards out there that will appear to MCE as DVB-T.

Depending on how you deal with the subscription element of Virgin, and legal interpretation you'll also at best be breaking your Ts&Cs with Virgin, and at worst be breaking the law.

 

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MCE2005 (Reluctantly decided not to upgrade to TV Pack - will see if 7MC fixes the issues) | AMD64X2 3600+ | 1Gb Ram | 3x500Gb SATA | Hauppauge PVR150 | nVidia 7300LE silent GPU | Pig ugly big black case | Virgin Media cable | Xbox 360 wired extender

I have a valid subscription with Virgin and i'm not too bothered about breaking Ts&Cs
(Going by their T&Cs having a router on you broadband is a breach)

After a little more digging i have found http://www.digital-everywhere.com/shop/index.php?page=artikel&pkateg=19

And some people have reported they have virgin working with it.
Has anyone tried this?
I am assuming if it works I would need a CAM module for the viewing card aswell.

I can confirm the Digital Everywhere DVB-S2 works well with Satellite and the CAM can decode Sky pay channels fine. I'd suggest checking the Digital Everywhere forum for info on whether their DVB-C box works well with Virgin.

Yeah I have read loads about the satellite version working fine. Just taken a look through the Digital everywhere forum and there is nothing, but then again the search feature on that forum is awful.

Edit: Any info I can find refers to posts on firedtv.co.uk which appears to no longer exist.

Sorry to double post I have struck gold.
I have found a forum dedicated to this very subject.
Not sure if I am allowed to post a link to it so I won't for now.
Thanks to those that have offered help.

VISTA MCE works great with VM via FireDTV other than the EPG Service.

Hopefully DVBGUIDE/EPGSTREAM will release a solution/fix to work with Repack 2008, so that it can extract the EPG data from the feed.

Alternatively, if you know the analogue headend then you can MAP your listings, but its really frustrating.
I'd wait for the fixes to extract via EIT.