Clear QAM, HDPVR and HVR-2250

[rwc]

I've got a few questions that hopefully somebody can help me with....

1. Do I need "hd" service to get a Clear QAM signal?

2. Does the hd home run cable card seem likely to happen?

3. Does the HDPVR and the HVR-2250 play nice together? After running hwclear, which woudl I install first? THe PVR or the HVR?

THANKS!

rwc

[rrhorer]

1. You need the digital service for sure to get clear QAM; and you may need to purchase HD service to get the clear QAM stations that broadcast in HD. I have Cox in Phoenix, which provides about 70 analog channels with the basic service and close to 50 clear QAM channels with extended basic service, including approx. 1/4 of them in HD. Cox does not charge extra for HD service, only extra for an HD STB (which is required for my HD PVR).
2. I have no idea.
3. Yes, as long as you avoid the ir issues (Issues arise when trying to control two Hauppauge devices using ir. I even cover the ir reciever on the HD PVR with a small piece of black electrical tape and use a USB-UIRT for remote control and firewire for channel changing.). I don't think it matters which of the two is installed first; however, I generally power-off the HDPVR and install the HVR 2250 first, then power-on the HDPVR and install it second. I have done this frequently; and, its worked every time for me.

[paulbeers]

1. rrhoer is incorrect. Whether or not you need the HD service in order to get HD Clear QAM is dependent on your cable service and really dependent on what your service provider allows in the Clear. I get all of my locals in HD via Clear QAM and I don't even have cable television (I do have cable broadband though)! Now I do not get any of the other cable channels via Clear QAM other than my locals. My in-laws only have basic expanded cable (so no they do not have the digital service) and get all of their basic expanded channels in both analog and digital via Clear QAM. So again, it is really dependent on your provider.

2. I would not hold my breath. Right now the use of Cable Cards requires DRM in the recording program. This means that Sage is not compliant with the basics of the Cable Card recording (one of the reasons I chose Sage over Windows Media Center was to be rid of DRM) process. One of the theoretical ways around this is to use Windows Media Center to record via Clear QAM and then copy over to Sage. There are limitations to this if your cable company starts flagging shows.... There are many threads on this, and if you want to know all the ins and outs, please do a search.

3. Doesn't matter. I have them both. I installed my HDPVR first but only because I didn't own the HVR2250 before I bought the HDPVR. I do not use the build in IR blaster in either of them instead opting for the USB UIRT.

[rrhorer]

Thanks for correcting me. However, I understood his question to mean getting all clear QAM that was available; and you freely admit that you are not able to do this with cable broadband only. I also must assume that the "basic expanded cable" your in-laws get is different than the "extended basic service" that I described; but I'm not sure how they differ, since they both include the ability to recieve digital programming. Maybe I should not have referred to that ability as digital service (although that is what it is in Phoenix), since it seems to have more significance to you. But, the question is: could your in-laws receive digital programming if they subscribed to the basic service only? What service does he need if he wants clear QAM reception and he wants all that is available?

[CollinR]

I get the QAM in the clear as as my father, I have no TV service at all but do have internet access. My father has all the bells and whistlers, whats in the clear is the same regaurdless of the lineup you pay for.

They should play well togther but do to entirely different jobs. The HDPVR encodes anything over component to h.264. The HVR2250 can only access unecrypted content.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

1. rrhoer is incorrect. Whether or not you need the HD service in order to get HD Clear QAM is dependent on your cable service and really dependent on what your service provider allows in the Clear. I get all of my locals in HD via Clear QAM and I don't even have cable television (I do have cable broadband though)! Now I do not get any of the other cable channels via Clear QAM other than my locals. My in-laws only have basic expanded cable (so no they do not have the digital service) and get all of their basic expanded channels in both analog and digital via Clear QAM. So again, it is really dependent on your provider.

2. I would not hold my breath. Right now the use of Cable Cards requires DRM in the recording program. This means that Sage is not compliant with the basics of the Cable Card recording (one of the reasons I chose Sage over Windows Media Center was to be rid of DRM) process. One of the theoretical ways around this is to use Windows Media Center to record via Clear QAM and then copy over to Sage. There are limitations to this if your cable company starts flagging shows.... There are many threads on this, and if you want to know all the ins and outs, please do a search.

3. Doesn't matter. I have them both. I installed my HDPVR first but only because I didn't own the HVR2250 before I bought the HDPVR. I do not use the build in IR blaster in either of them instead opting for the USB UIRT.

I too would like to add a 2250 to my HD-PVR setup.

I use the HD-PVR's IR and included remote, and they work fine.
If I add the 2250, will I be able to control it's channel map through Sage 7 and via the HD-PVR's IR Blaster, or will I need to have a seperate IR Blaster for the 2250?

I was controlling a PVR-150 and the HD-PVR with one Hauppauge remote through the HD-PVR (at least I though I was). The channel maps for the two units didn't overlap, which I imagine would be the case again (my sat receiver doesn't recognize channels as .1)

does this make sense?

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I too would like to add a 2250 to my HD-PVR setup.

I use the HD-PVR's IR and included remote, and they work fine.
If I add the 2250, will I be able to control it's channel map through Sage 7 and via the HD-PVR's IR Blaster, or will I need to have a seperate IR Blaster for the 2250?

I was controlling a PVR-150 and the HD-PVR with one Hauppauge remote through the HD-PVR (at least I though I was). The channel maps for the two units didn't overlap, which I imagine would be the case again (my sat receiver doesn't recognize channels as .1)

does this make sense?

Yes, it is possible to have both a HD-PVR and a HVR-2250 in the same system. I have a similar set-up with even more tuners:

• Tuner 1 = HD-PVR connected to Comcast HD Cable box via component. Using USB-UIRT as a blaster to change channels on the box.
• Tuner 2 = PVR-150 connected to Comcast SD Cable box via composite. Using 2nd zone on same USB-UIRT to change channels on the box.
• Tuner 3 and 4 = dual-tuner HVR-2250 connected to Comcast digital cable via Coax. Bother tuners can tune and record Clear QAM. No IR Blaster required. Also using the IR Receiver plugged into this card with a Hauppague 45-button silver remote to control SageTV.
• Tuner 5 and 6 = dual-tuner HDHomeRun connected to Comcast digital cable via Coax. Bother tuners can tune and record Clear QAM. No IR Blaster required.

Note: The HVR-2250 does not require an IRBlaster to record clear QAM (connected directly to the coax cable with no set top box). Clear QAM is limited in most markets to only a handful of channels.

If you want to use the HVR-2250 to get all available channels you can connect it to a cable box using either coax (tuned to analog channel 3), composite (single cable with yellow RCA connector for picture plus red and white for sound), or S-Video (round multi-pin connector plus separate red and white RCA connectors for sound). With all 3 of these methods, you will only be able to record an analog SD copy (any HD or digital channels will be converted to analog SD by your cable box first, then re-encoded by the HVR-2250) of whatever your cable box is tuned to and you will need an IR-Blaster to change the channels on the cable box.

To the best of my knowledge (unless something has changed recently), if you have multiple Hauppauge devices connected to the same PC, the Hauppauge drivers only allow you to use 1 IR Blaster and 1 IR Receiver from one of the devices at a time.

It makes sense to only support 1 IR receiver (you can really only use 1 remote at a time to control Sage anyway). You may be able to get by with only 1 IR blaster too (As long as you only have 1 cable box that you need to control and your other tuners are all hooked directly to the cable without a box). But, Hauppauge doesn't provide a method for you to choose which one it will use. It picks for you and it usually picks whatever device was installed most recently. You may need to try plugging blasters into each device one at a time until you figure out which one it is using.

If you need to control multiple set top boxes, you may want to add a device like the USB-UIRT.

Oh, and yes, Sage supports having multiple tuners, each with a different set of channels available and it mixes all the channels together into the one channel guide for you. When you pick a channel to watch or record, Sage is smart enough to know which tuners are capable of recording that channel and it picks a suitable tuner automatically.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Yes, it is possible to have both a HD-PVR and a HVR-2250 in the same system. I have a similar set-up with even more tuners:

• Tuner 1 = HD-PVR connected to Comcast HD Cable box via component. Using USB-UIRT as a blaster to change channels on the box.
• Tuner 2 = PVR-150 connected to Comcast SD Cable box via composite. Using 2nd zone on same USB-UIRT to change channels on the box.
• Tuner 3 and 4 = dual-tuner HVR-2250 connected to Comcast digital cable via Coax. Bother tuners can tune and record Clear QAM. No IR Blaster required. Also using the IR Receiver plugged into this card with a Hauppague 45-button silver remote to control SageTV.
• Tuner 5 and 6 = dual-tuner HDHomeRun connected to Comcast digital cable via Coax. Bother tuners can tune and record Clear QAM. No IR Blaster required.

Note: The HVR-2250 does not require an IRBlaster to record clear QAM (connected directly to the coax cable with no set top box). Clear QAM is limited in most markets to only a handful of channels.

If you want to use the HVR-2250 to get all available channels you can connect it to a cable box using either coax (tuned to analog channel 3), composite (single cable with yellow RCA connector for picture plus red and white for sound), or S-Video (round multi-pin connector plus separate red and white RCA connectors for sound). With all 3 of these methods, you will only be able to record an analog SD copy (any HD or digital channels will be converted to analog SD by your cable box first, then re-encoded by the HVR-2250) of whatever your cable box is tuned to and you will need an IR-Blaster to change the channels on the cable box.

To the best of my knowledge (unless something has changed recently), if you have multiple Hauppauge devices connected to the same PC, the Hauppauge drivers only allow you to use 1 IR Blaster and 1 IR Receiver from one of the devices at a time.

It makes sense to only support 1 IR receiver (you can really only use 1 remote at a time to control Sage anyway). You may be able to get by with only 1 IR blaster too (As long as you only have 1 cable box that you need to control and your other tuners are all hooked directly to the cable without a box). But, Hauppauge doesn't provide a method for you to choose which one it will use. It picks for you and it usually picks whatever device was installed most recently. You may need to try plugging blasters into each device one at a time until you figure out which one it is using.

If you need to control multiple set top boxes, you may want to add a device like the USB-UIRT.

Oh, and yes, Sage supports having multiple tuners, each with a different set of channels available and it mixes all the channels together into the one channel guide for you. When you pick a channel to watch or record, Sage is smart enough to know which tuners are capable of recording that channel and it picks a suitable tuner automatically.

In my case, the 2250 will either be getting a feed from an OTA antenna, or clear QAM - no need for IR blasting, as the channels are internal in the coax. Therefore, I imagine I only need the blaster on the HD-PVR?

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

In my case, the 2250 will either be getting a feed from an OTA antenna, or clear QAM - no need for IR blasting, as the channels are internal in the coax. Therefore, I imagine I only need the blaster on the HD-PVR?

Yes that's right. Blaster is only needed if you need to change the channel on a STB.