AutumnWave OnAir GT support QAM in Sage?

[Chuck Coughlin]

Long time lurker here and really never post much but though I would speak up when I saw this one!

Also noteworthy...A special treat to SageTV users: The current beta (v6.0.12) has experimental QAM support for the OnAir GT!!

From this thread over on AVS.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8676864

post # 434

Has anyone tried this yet??? This would be the holy grail of HD for me and I would gladly pitch MCE and move over to Sage if this actually works reliably!

[Opus4]

BTW: For anyone who missed it, the post containing a short update blurb about this can be found in the v6.0.12 topic, here.

- Andy

[ikarus79m]

I know this QAM thing has been asked for on here many many times, but I don't really understand what it does exactly. Would this allow you to record HD from a cable HD and Satellite HD tuner?

How does QAM work and what exactly is it doing?

[GTwannabe]

QAM is basically an unencrypted MPEG2 stream piped over your cable line. Typically, only the free local HD channels (ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS, etc) are unencrypted.

[ikarus79m]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

QAM is basically an unencrypted MPEG2 stream piped over your cable line. Typically, only the free local HD channels (ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS, etc) are unencrypted.

So there isn't really any practical advantage of QAM over OTA HD then? (Since I can already get those Channels with my free indoor Antenna.)

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by ikarus79m

So there isn't really any practical advantage of QAM over OTA HD then? (Since I can already get those Channels with my free indoor Antenna.)

With Comcast, I also get a number of SD channels and all of the Digital Music channels unencryped on QAM.

If I had decent OTA reception I would probably lean in that direction.

[ikarus79m]

I wish they would already come out with a capture card that simply includes a cable card slot and lets your record all the HD goodness on your computer... but for now OTA will do for me since I mostly watch the broadcast stations anyways. Since my HD setup is working so nicely now I am actually going to cancel my DirecTV this week. :-)

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

QAM is basically an unencrypted MPEG2 stream piped over your cable line. Typically, only the free local HD channels (ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS, etc) are unencrypted.

Does this mean it'll get anything that's not 5c'ed? If so, my firewire box with my provider is completely open, and I'd be able to get pretty much everything?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Does this mean it'll get anything that's not 5c'ed? If so, my firewire box with my provider is completely open, and I'd be able to get pretty much everything?

Not neccessarily. I think 5C is separate from QAM scrambling. For instance, my firewire box doesn't do any 5C right now, but the last time I checked, my sisters cable-ready HDTV wouldn't tune in any of the premium channels, even though I get it over firewire.

So, in essence, the signal comes in to the house with most stuff scrambled, and is unscrambled at the box, then 5C can be implemented.

[salsbst]

Could anyone using the AutumnWave OnAir GT comment on their experience? Does it successfully record all of your available unencrypted QAM channels?

[paulbeers]

I haven't been paying much attention to this beta release (been playing around with swapping servers and other projects), but I just noticed this. What are the first impressions? Worth picking up? While I currently can get OTA, I really hate having to use an antennae, and would much rather use my cable system.

[salsbst]

Hey, y'all. May I make a suggestion/request that general QAM talk move to here other thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...274#post185274 ? I've posted my QAM experience and what little knowledge I have about the variables that effect recordability to PC there.

TIA,
Stuart

P.S. Bump for the OT (OnAir GT)

[Diginerd]

So i just bought 2 x Onair USB HDTV-GT (As supported by sage 6.0.12 beta)

So here are the bits I think you want to hear:-

Both work just fine, I can receive all analog cable channels as my hauppage 250 and PVR-USB2 do, if anything I say the quality is slightly better, but not as host as the ATI HDTV 650s I just bought (Yea, I'm a glutton for capture devices!).

it also can receive about 40 or so QAM encoded digital channels right of the wire. 35 or so are regular standard Def "Digital Cable", but 7 are HiDef Locals, PBS & ESPN HD (Don't ask me why!).

All the digital stuff is as good as the STB. Some are very "Mpeggy" as they're low bandwidth, 528 x 480 stream, right up to 1920 x 1080 HiDef Locals.

This is awesome.. :-)

They also have S-Video / Audio inputs, so they support the old SVideo from cable box trick.

Basically it will slurp a good amount of stuff off the wire, the package correseponds to the "Basic Plus" package that my company offers. So no premium stuff that my actual package has (HBO, Stars, Speed, etc), also a fair number of HiDef channels that I get with my STB are missing (No UPN, No HBO, No Universal HD, In HD, MSG HD etc).

That said with my firewire STB Setup, 2 of these I can record 3 x HiDef streams in a single computer, which can't be done with firewire alone.

Now the bad..

Sometimes when changing channel it doesn't quite sync with the stream so it puts up garbage, though that may be my decoder (Only got these yesterday so not fully validated them yet).

The missing encrypted channels are annoying but not the end of the world..

And finally Sage team, PLEASE PLEASE can we finally get a way to discretely set channels per encoder for a given lineup, rather than one lineup for all encoders. With multiple ways of recording the same channels it's etting increasingly hard to work around..

Alll around 9/10 (Cost dropping the single point)

[lobosrul]

Are you saying the analog capture of the On-air HDTV-GT is better than a hauppage? Their sales rep just confirmed that it uses software encoding. I didnt think it was possible for one digital tuner to have a better quality capture than another, unless your switching decoders.

Right now I use an ATI HDTV wonder (software encoder) and Firewire capture. The analog capture on the ATI looks bad, real bad. In fact I have to switch to Nvidia Post Procesor decoder to make it even watchable, which is a pain because I have to switch back for HDTV playback. Not all software encoders are equal I suppose.

Ive heard Comcast is simulcasting analog channels on digital in some areas, but not here. So firewire thru the box doesnt work for anything under channel 100.

[Diginerd]

Analog capture I feel is slightly better, the digital side of things is just that, digital. 0101101101 is the same from all sources.

My ATI HDTV Wonder 650 has THE best analog capture I've seen from a prosumer level card though.

What cable box you using for firewire capture? I have a 4200HD from cable vision and I have to say that I'm mightily impressed with it via firewire. Cablevision don't appear to have 5c on anything, but that of course can change at any moment...

[lobosrul]

I have (or really Im being rented) an SA 3250HD.

I dont think that has anything to do with which channels are being encrypted though. Its just Comcast's (usual) bull.

The firewire capture works great, as long as im not watching at the same time. After a few minutes, to about half an hour, the feed goes into a short infinite loop. Like 1 second of the stream being constantly repeated. It doesnt lock up Sage, but if exit and try to resume playback, its still stuck there. Maybe I'll play with the graph one day. I dont have the problem with OTA-HD.

[NishanF]

Diginerd,
How are you setting up the EPG. I have the AutumnWave and it works great for tuning in the clear stations off cable. I can't seem to get the EPG working however. For instance, 98-3 is the digital TBS station. I downloaded the EPG data for my Comcast digital lineup and tried to remap the physical channel of WTBS-DT to 98-3. I tried 98.3, 98-3, DT98-3, etc., but I could never get it too work. It would continue to display "no-signal". Any advice?

nishan

[donkey]

So far we are not able to link EPG to QAM channel, you have to manually setup.
Scan channel with “Don’t Use Program Guide Data” to get a frq file, then downloaded the EPG data for your cable provider, and remap physical channel as
“physcal_channel-major-minor” referring data in your frq file, or just “index” in frq file.

example :
xxx.frq file
#ch:index major minor program_id phyical_channel inversion qam-mod ctrl_bits(1:enable; 0:disable)
….
ch:43 18 3 3 161 0 0 1 #FUN
ch:44 11 1 3 165 0 0 1 #KTTV DT
ch:45 13 1 3 166 0 0 1 #KCOP DT
ch:45 0 1 1 168 0 0 1 #DTV68.0
ch:46 0 2 2 168 0 0 1 #DTV68.1

FUN mapping “161-18-3“, KTTV DT mapping “165-11-1” , DTV68.0 mapping “168-0-1”.
Or index mapping KCOP DT is “45”, DTV68.1 is 46, FUN is 43

[srothwell]

Diginerd,

I am dying to know how you got two GTs to work at the same time on the same PC without problems....

Poor Qian (Donkey) has been working with me all weekend to try to make two of them work becuase the drivers from On-air don't directly support multiple GTs on the same system. (I assume you're using them both for Digital Cable?)

Any info you can give us might save us a lot of time....

thanks

Stacy

[rfutscher]

Originally Posted by Diginerd

Analog capture I feel is slightly better, the digital side of things is just that, digital. 0101101101 is the same from all sources.

......

My two digital cards are not the same. The Fusion is good at handling multipath, my ATI HDWonder is not. On a good day both are the same. When the wind is blowing and the trees are moving I get some video freezes and audio stuttering with the HDWopnder on almost every station. The Fusion only has problems with several distant stations. One card receives 0101101101, the other 1101101101.