OTA hvr-2250 sage setup issue

[toony]

So I thought I would give it a try and I picked up a Channelmaster OTA antenna and wired it to the 2250.
Set it up and the ln setup sources in sage and Di a channel scan.

Now I live in Toronto, a pretty big city, you would think something would show up. I can't find one station.


Is there a step I'm missing here during setup ?

Cheers

[SWKerr]

Have you connected it directly to a HDTV and done a channel scan there first to make sure the antenna is connected correctly and working?

[toony]

Yes I just did that and the tv is picking up about 50% of the channels available in my area. I haven't setup the antennae in a final location.

Any ideas?

[jerryt]

Tune the antenna.

[toony]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Tune the antenna.

Tune the antenna?

How would that help Sage finding the channels when I do a scan? I understand it will help with reception, some are coming in strong and sage isn't seeing anything.

[jerryt]

In my area the antenna needs a heading of 034 on a compass. 032 and 036 are starting to get bad. Tune the antenna on a TV until it has peak signal, then scan with Sage. You may also need an amplifier because PC cards have weaker tunners then TV's.

[SWKerr]

There are different kinds of antennas. What is the model of the Channelmaster you got. Also do you know how many miles the stations are from your house and in what direction they are related to your house. There different kinds of antenna, some are directional and need to be pointed in the general direction of the tower. It could be when it is mounted in the final location you will be good but finding out how far and were the towers are will let you know what kind of antenna you need.
The below site is a good resource for getting this information.
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx


Signal strength is important. Does your TV have a signal meter on it? Typically you want something above 80% in order to get a go tunable signal. If it is less than that you may want to add a amplifier. The best ones are pole mounted and called pre-amplifiers.

I am not sure how good the 2250 tuner is but it is likely if you are only getting 60-70% signal strength on the TV the tuner card will not pick up anything. If it is like 90% then you definitely ought to be able to tune with the card. Cards differ in their ability to deal with weak signals and multi-path. Everything I have read says that card is one of the best for OTA tuning. I use a HDHR today but my old hauppauge 1800 was also very good.

[toony]

Excellent, I didn't know there was as much involved. Live and learn.

My TV doesn't show the strength so I'll have to do it the old fashioned way I suppose.

I'll report back.

[toony]

Well I'm reporting back, not with great news I'm afraid.

I tuned the antenna and get great reception on my hdtv. 16 channels are coming in strong and a few weaker ones. I have heard there are 26 possible available, but I don't have an amplifier yet so that may be the cause.

I did just notice something that sage is calling the 2250 card a
WinTV-7164 analogue capture. Is that right?

Anyway I hooked up to the 2250 and did a scan. Nothing. Not one signal.. Am I doing this right?

Sage -> settings-> set up new source -> add new source -> tv tuner ->
use tv tuner on capture card to tune antenna/broadcast ->
use US, Canada or XMLT guide data with this source ->
Local broadcast (over the air) ->
pick Buffalo - digital broadcast (it's the closest to Toronto) ->
scan for available channels.

cheers

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by toony

Well I'm reporting back, not with great news I'm afraid.

I tuned the antenna and get great reception on my hdtv. 16 channels are coming in strong and a few weaker ones. I have heard there are 26 possible available, but I don't have an amplifier yet so that may be the cause.

I did just notice something that sage is calling the 2250 card a
WinTV-7164 analogue capture. Is that right?

Anyway I hooked up to the 2250 and did a scan. Nothing. Not one signal.. Am I doing this right?

Sage -> settings-> set up new source -> add new source -> tv tuner ->
use tv tuner on capture card to tune antenna/broadcast ->
use US, Canada or XMLT guide data with this source ->
Local broadcast (over the air) ->
pick Buffalo - digital broadcast (it's the closest to Toronto) ->
scan for available channels.

cheers

Sage -> settings-> set up new source -> add new source -> Digital tuner ->
use Digital tuner on capture card to tune antenna/broadcast ->
use US, Canada or XMLT guide data with this source ->
Local broadcast (over the air) ->

Selecting "TV Tuner" would scan analog channels.

[davephan]

Are you TV stations in Canada broadcasting in digital or analog? Have you tried hooking the antenna up to a SD or HD TV? If so, are the digital stations solid with no pixelation or the analog signals free of snow or ghosting?

You could also try installing the lousy Hauppauge PVR software just to test if the tuner card is working correctly, independent of SageTV.

In SageTV, my HVR-2250 is called a WinTV-7164 analogue capture and a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250(8891) in device manager.

I am using my HVR-2250 in analog mode, connected to the output of two DTA cable boxes that outputs channel 3 & 4 into a signal combiner. Previously, I used it for analog cable TV. Before I reconfigured it recently, I did test it with OTA HD, and the performance was about the same as my HDHomerun dual OTA tuners. I can't remember if the HVR-2250 was named something other than "WinTV-7164 analogue capture" while receiving digital OTA within SageTV.

I do have an older WinTV-PVR-350 that has a defective tuner and receives TV very poorly, when feeding an analog signal into it, even with an amplifier. The S-video input works fine on that WinTV-PVR-350 card. So, it is a possibility that your HVR-2250 could be defective, either the tuners or the common RF connection to the tuners within the tuner card.

Dave

[HelenWeathers]

Is your antenna pointed at Buffalo to receive those stations??

If you pull your guide from Buffalo but are tuning stations in Canada, the frequencies in the Buffalo guide may not be the same as those of your Canada stations. You may have to do some serious guide editing.

[alwzn4vr]

Originally Posted by toony

Well I'm reporting back, not with great news I'm afraid.

I tuned the antenna and get great reception on my hdtv. 16 channels are coming in strong and a few weaker ones. I have heard there are 26 possible available, but I don't have an amplifier yet so that may be the cause.

I did just notice something that sage is calling the 2250 card a
WinTV-7164 analogue capture. Is that right?

Anyway I hooked up to the 2250 and did a scan. Nothing. Not one signal.. Am I doing this right?

Sage -> settings-> set up new source -> add new source -> tv tuner ->
use tv tuner on capture card to tune antenna/broadcast ->
use US, Canada or XMLT guide data with this source ->
Local broadcast (over the air) ->
pick Buffalo - digital broadcast (it's the closest to Toronto) ->
scan for available channels.

cheers

Not sure but where is your antenna? Attic, on the roof? Orientation towards the CN tower or Buffalo?
I have 2 x 2250 in a dedicated SageTV server and I get 21 digital channels with my attic mounted channel master 4221HD. (Will roof mount it when the weather is a bit nicer)
If signal strength isn't good enough then the digital channel will not show up at all during a scan. Unlike analog channels which may still be snowy, etc.

Also, how long is the RG-6 cable from the antenna to the tuner card?

You should be able to figure out how many channels are available from www.tvfool.com for your location.

[toony]

Ok, to try and answer everyone, thanks by the way!...

"add new source -> Digital tuner ->" That may be the issue right there.

I am pointed at Buffalo, SE from my roof top.

After I select Buffalo I then do a chan scan.

I tested it by directly hooking into an HDTV and did a chan scan. some of the channels were deffinetly HD, some just digital, and a few snowy chans which I assumed were analogue.

The RG6 cable is about 35' long.

The 2250 I have been using with for a while now and it works fin with sd cable, so I don't think it's deffective.

Of course doing this today has set off some other issues with the HD-PVR... the ir blaster isn't working with the digital cable box so I think I have to uninstall and reinstall my capture cards again tomorrow so I have to wait to try this again. uggg

[blueroom]

Which Channel Master antenna are you using? Where is it mounted? How high up?
I have two tuners & two yagis in the attic as the CN tower & buffalo are in different directions.

[alwzn4vr]

Originally Posted by toony

Ok, to try and answer everyone, thanks by the way!...

"add new source -> Digital tuner ->" That may be the issue right there.

I am pointed at Buffalo, SE from my roof top.

After I select Buffalo I then do a chan scan.

I tested it by directly hooking into an HDTV and did a chan scan. some of the channels were deffinetly HD, some just digital, and a few snowy chans which I assumed were analogue.

The RG6 cable is about 35' long.

The 2250 I have been using with for a while now and it works fin with sd cable, so I don't think it's deffective.

Of course doing this today has set off some other issues with the HD-PVR... the ir blaster isn't working with the digital cable box so I think I have to uninstall and reinstall my capture cards again tomorrow so I have to wait to try this again. uggg

When I set up the video source I only set up the digital input of the 2250 and did a channel scan on the first source. (I have 2 x 2250, so Sage reports 4 tuners)
It's set as follows in the summary:
input type = digital tv tuner
cable/antenna = antenna
epg lineup = buffalo - digital broadcast
tuner control = n/a
broadcast standard = ATSC

After setting up the first tuner I copied the set up for the other 3. I re-mapped some channels to get the right EPG data but other than that it pretty much worked out of the box.

As for the 35' that's relatively short and you shouldn't need a pre-amp. Also, when you go into the channel summary after the scan, when you go into the 'preview this channel' option you are shown the signal strength. Mine are all at 100% except for one that was fluctuating between 40-80% until I re-oriented the antenna. Now that channel is at 60-100% all the time.

[toony]

Guys I feel like a tool here. All it was is that I didn't select 'digital tuner' during the setup.

It's working. Sorry for all the trouble, but I really appreciate all the help.

Cheers