Digital Tuning - What to buy?

[snoopy]

I live in the US and am trying to figure out what to buy. I currently have a Haupauge PVR-500 dual tuner card which tunes to regular cable channels but not to digital ones. Is there a way to tune to those digital cable channels or should I settle for an analog card and hook up an antenna? I am really only after one digital channel (The CW) and would prefer to watch it over digital cable if it's possible. I understand I need to know more about exactly how Time Warner produces the digital cable in this area but so far do not know what to ask. I live in Waco TX and any information would be helpfull. Thanks.

[KryptoNyte]

The CW is one of the encrpyted digital stations here in Milwaukee. Not sure what you may get for your area, but I still have to bring that one in with an analog tuner.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

The CW is one of the encrpyted digital stations here in Milwaukee. Not sure what you may get for your area, but I still have to bring that one in with an analog tuner.

Is there a difference between encrypted and non-encrypted for digital channels? Can you shed some more light on this confusing topic?

[KryptoNyte]

There are some digital channels that your local cable provider will encrypt. If you plug your tuner device into the wall cable outlet, you will not receive the encrypted channels. Before purchasing hardware that would receive a digital signal, I read about encrypted channels and thought to myself, "well, I can deal without having HBO and a number of the other premium channels." The reality of the situation, at least for us and Time Warner Cable, is that we only receive about 5-10 digital stations that are not encrypted. That's 5-10 available digital channels, 200 unavailable channels.

The only way to get the encrypted digital content, that I am aware of, is with the cable company set top box, or compatible cable card. It appears that a few PC systems are emerging with an ATI PCI device that takes a cable card, however, it does require Vista and there are other things going on there that we HTPC users don't appreciate.

That's my understanding. Some other folks here may be aware of other devices that may be able to accomplish this. I believe we are all secretly hoping for the broadcasting companies to quit this nonsense and let us operate our own televisions. The reality is that additional hardware will probably need to become available to legally circumvent this situation.

[ke6guj]

Recording digital programming over cable is a little difficult right now.

There are 2 primary ways to record digital content in digital format over cable, one is QAM recording and the other is recording the firewire output of the CC's cable box.

THe QAM way is done with a QAM tuner, such as the HDHomerun. It can only record those digital channels that the CC send unscrambled. Many times that may only be your local channels and a couple other channels. There is no set list of channels you'll get, it will vary from city to city and CC to CC.

The FIrewire method is done by getting a digital STB from the CC with a firewire port. If the firewire port is enabled, you can record digital content directly from the STB with no other capture device needed. However, you will only be able to get channels that the CC does not encrypt out of that port. It is commonly called 5C encryption. That may be only a couple channels, maybe the locals, or may be completely open to what ever channels you pay for.

My QAM tuners get my local channels and 4-5 others, but my Firewire'd STB get every channel I pay for, premiums included.


edit: there is no real way to find out what you'll get via each method, until you try it.