Which "source" to use in setup with Comcast?

[trahajopro86]

Hey all,

I'm sure this has been covered in another thread, but I can't seem to find it.

I bought a sage extender a couple weeks ago (replaced an AppleTV with it). At the time I got the extender I was using Digital broadcast (antenna only) in my setup and it worked like a champ.

A couple days ago, I ditched Dish Network and got Comcast cable (no digital boxes). When using only the antenna I had configured my Hauppauge 2250 for digital antenna broadcast and it would pick up both digital and analog stations with that configuration.

Now that I have Comcast, I can select analog tuner which all the normal expanded basic channels work, but the local HD channels (eg. 2-1, 4-1, etc) won't tune. If I switch the source setup to digital, the *-* channels tune, but none of the analog ones will. This kinda makes sense, but why did it work with antenna? Is the "digital tuner" not capable of doing a mix of analog and digital with Comcast?

I tried setting one tuner to analog and one to digital, but it seems that whatever input #1 is set to is the default. Even if this worked, I assume my "dual tuner" functionality just took a huge hit (like being able to record two things simultaneously on either analog or digital). Also when using the analog on one tuner and digital on the other, it seemed like the channel numbers didn't match the signal.

My questions are:
1. What input settings should I use for Comcast (without a cable box)?
2. How do I completely wipe out my previous channel settings (just in case)?
3. I see many threads about Comcast and changes to service, but it seems like the 2250 should be good with that... is that right?



Thanks

-Tracy

[ChaOConnor]

Same thing happened to me after the digital transition. If I tried setting up analog first, then digital, I got just digital or the channel mapping was incorrect.

Here's what I found for Comcast in Boston area. If I only use the digital tuner on my HVR-2250, I get all the digital channels which include standard def & HD. Each digital channel has an analog equivilent, so infact I don't need the analog tuner any more. Make sense? So yes, I can no longer tune to CH 29, but that's okay, because there is CH 29-1 which is the same channel but only in HD. And if I want the SD version, I have to tune to CH 229-1 or something to that effect. And I only have the most basic cable package ($8 bucks a month or something...).

So my suggestion is to not worry about the analog, just setup your 2250 to use two digital TV tuners and you'll be good to go!

Hope that helps!

[rrhorer]

FWIW, I also have the HVR-2250 and was having some difficulty understanding what was happening to the sources, lineups and remapping in Sage; so, I wrote the attached program in Delphi. The latest Sage makes a lot of the remapping process easier to understand but may still be confusing when certain things don’t work as expected. Although this program has only been tested on my setup (Cox Cable in Phoenix, Arizona), it may provide some useful insights if you are have problems setting up the HVR-2250 or a similar qam tuner. I’ve included the source code as well – it’s not needed, and be warned that it is pretty much a “brute force” program without any sophistication at all.

To use the program, simply unzip it to a directory of your choosing.

Features
The “Lineups” program gathers and develops a composite of tuning and guide information from four sources. It includes the following features:
• Display the Zap2It listing data, including: Station Name, Channel, and the StnNum used for retrieving guide information.
• Display the SiliconDust “Digital Channels by Location” data, including: Modulation, Frequency, Physical Channel & Program Number, Virtual Guide Number, Name, Resolution, Aspect, and a cross-reference to the Zap2It Channel and StnNum data. While this info is readily available to HDHomeRun owners, the same cannot be said for us lowly HVR-2250 owners.
• Display remap suggestions. The recommendations result from a cross-reference of the first three sources listed below.
• Display Sage.properties info for all encoding devices having a Provider ID (i.e., access to guide info) and for all data sources for the guide info.
• Display lineup info for each Provider ID, including: StnNum, Lineup, Override (channel number), Physical-Override (Phy-Maj-Min), and Avail (disabled selections) from Sage.properties as well as a cross-reference to the Zap2It Channel and StnNum data. This info can be sorted on any of the data columns.

Requirements
The “Lineups” program gathers data from four files which need to be placed in the “Lineups” directory or located by the user after the program starts:
1. A “Zap2It.txt” file (see instructions below).
2. A “SiliconDust.txt” file (see instructions below).
3. Your Sage “.frq” file resulting from a scan in setting up the video source (e.g., “Hauppauge WinTV-7164 Analog Capture-0-QAM.frq”).
4. Your Sage.properties file. You can reference the one in your Sage directory after the program starts; but, I recommend placing a copy in the “Lineups” directory where the program will find it by default.

Creating the “Zap2It.txt” and “SiliconDust.txt” files is a very simple procedure: (1) go to each web site and access the appropriate web page based on your zip code and cable service provider, (2) right click and select “View Source” to open the web page as a text file in Notepad and (3) save the text file to the “Lineups” directory, over-writing an empty file with the correct default name.

For the Zap2It text file:
1. Go to http://www.zap2it.com/
2. Then go to “TV Listings” and set preferences to get listings for your area code and provider. If you are using both analog and digital lineups, select the one that is most inclusive (i.e., the digital lineup).
3. When you are viewing the correct TV Listings, right click anywhere on the screen and select “View Source”. This displays the web page as xml text in Notepad.
4. Do a “File/Save” to the “Lineups” directory, overwriting the empty file named “Zap2It.txt”.

For the SiliconDust text file:
1. Go to http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us
2. Enter your zip code and click “Search”.
3. Right click anywhere on the screen and select “View Source”. This displays the web page as xml text in Notepad.
4. Do a “File/Save” to the “Lineups” directory, overwriting the empty file named “SiliconDust.txt”.

Again, my setup allows very limited testing (HVR-2250 and Cox Cable in Phoenix, Arizona); but, hopefully, the program will work for others well.