Comcast digital adapter and hauppage 2250

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by J.K.B.

Thanks, I checked out the other thread and it seems pretty straight forward. When you say marginal quality, does that mean same as analog or worse?

The DTA is analog...

A DTA (digital tuning adaptor) tunes the channel, grabs the QAM signal, decrypts it if needed, and converts it to an old-fashioned SD analog signal, then it modulates it onto either channel 3 or 4 and spits it out on coax cable to your TV, VCR, or tuner card.

Since the signal is transmitted to your house in digital format and is only in analog format for the short run from the DTA to your TV, the picture quality shouldn't be horrible. But, it's not going to be as good as a pure digital SD signal, and it will be nowhere near as good as an HD signal.

If it was analog all the way from the cable company, it could suffer a lot of degradation over the long haul and would have a lot more opportunities to suffer from interference. This is what tended to introduce ghosting and "snow" to the older analog pictures.

[jptheripper]

Hey can you recommend a combiner?

was looking at

http://www.solidsignal.com/cview.asp...al%20Combiners

and not sure which one to get. I was wondering if you split the source to 3, sent 1 to each DTA, and combined the outs of the 3rd split, and channel 3 and channel 4, you could still get QAM and DTA outputs.

Just curious.

Originally Posted by davephan

You can connect two of the Comcast DTA boxes to one HVR-2250 if you use a cheap signal combiner. A splitter will not work, since the signals will cancel each other out. One DTA is set for channel 3 output, the other for channel 4 output. The HVR-2250 tuners are set for channels 3 and 4. The result will be marginal quality since the DTA boxes output only RF. Your picture and sound quality will be better if you use higher end set top boxes, but then you'll be stuck with more set top box monthly rental fees.

Here are more details how to hook up two DTA set top boxes to one HVR-2250 (post # 13):

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...=dta+2250+dave

Dave

[J.K.B.]

Wow, with Christmas and New Years, time just flew by. Hope everyone's was great! I'm stopping by radioshack later to get my stereo and IR parts and I am about to order my combiner. Is this what I will need for the h-2250?

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...Combiners&sku=

Thanks!

[teedublu]

No, that looks like a UHF - VHF combiner.

Generally most cheap splitters work fine as a combiner.
If in doubt, look for bi-directional on the splitter package.

TW

[davephan]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

Hey can you recommend a combiner?

was looking at

http://www.solidsignal.com/cview.asp...al%20Combiners

and not sure which one to get. I was wondering if you split the source to 3, sent 1 to each DTA, and combined the outs of the 3rd split, and channel 3 and channel 4, you could still get QAM and DTA outputs.

Just curious.

Yes,

Check out this signal combiner:

http://www.altex.com/Tru-Spec-Channe...3-P142591.aspx

I bought the signal combiner more than 10 years ago at a swapfest, so I don't know anything about the web store. I never used the signal combiner after I bought it was was lucky I could still find it in a closet. The picture on the web site is accurate. It is the same model and is pretty cheap. I think it was less then $20 at the swapfest.

Hook up both DTA boxes to the signal combiner, one DTA set to channel 3, the other to channel 4. Set one HVR-2250 tuner to channel 3 and the other for channel 4. A USB-UIRT can control both DTA boxes, plus another set top box. Black electric tape is used to cover the emitters so that they don't interfere with each other.

Before I tried using the signal combiner, I tried a simple splitter. That was worthless. The channel 3 and 4 signals canceled each other out leaving me with nothing. Unfortunately, the only RF output channel options for the DTA boxes are channels 3 and 4, so you can't separate them more.

The picture quality output from the DTA boxes is pretty poor. I rarely record anything from the DTA boxes. I think you would be better off renting another good quality box, although another cable box rental fee is annoying.

Dave

[J.K.B.]

Thanks, I agree about the annoying rental fee. This has just about pushed me to go to uverse or dish since the main benefit I had for cable was that the whole house was wired for cable and I had some old crt tv's for the garage and bedrooms that wouldn't need a box. Now I could get 3hd boxes from uverse and my total bill would be less than 1 would cost from comcast. Granted, I'd have to get 2 more HDPVRs...

I'll go ahead and get the combiner, its only $14 and see how much different the quality is on the crt tvs. Most of my recordings are able to be accomplished on the HD box or the OTA HD channels, but its nice to have a backup plan to record an extra overlapping game on cable or show if need be.

Originally Posted by davephan

Yes,

Check out this signal combiner:

http://www.altex.com/Tru-Spec-Channe...3-P142591.aspx

I bought the signal combiner more than 10 years ago at a swapfest, so I don't know anything about the web store. I never used the signal combiner after I bought it was was lucky I could still find it in a closet. The picture on the web site is accurate. It is the same model and is pretty cheap. I think it was less then $20 at the swapfest.

Hook up both DTA boxes to the signal combiner, one DTA set to channel 3, the other to channel 4. Set one HVR-2250 tuner to channel 3 and the other for channel 4. A USB-UIRT can control both DTA boxes, plus another set top box. Black electric tape is used to cover the emitters so that they don't interfere with each other.

Before I tried using the signal combiner, I tried a simple splitter. That was worthless. The channel 3 and 4 signals canceled each other out leaving me with nothing. Unfortunately, the only RF output channel options for the DTA boxes are channels 3 and 4, so you can't separate them more.

The picture quality output from the DTA boxes is pretty poor. I rarely record anything from the DTA boxes. I think you would be better off renting another good quality box, although another cable box rental fee is annoying.

Dave

[davephan]

Originally Posted by J.K.B.

Thanks, I agree about the annoying rental fee. This has just about pushed me to go to uverse or dish since the main benefit I had for cable was that the whole house was wired for cable and I had some old crt tv's for the garage and bedrooms that wouldn't need a box. Now I could get 3hd boxes from uverse and my total bill would be less than 1 would cost from comcast. Granted, I'd have to get 2 more HDPVRs...

You might want to wait for the Hauppauge Colossus. Hopefully, it will be more reliable than the HD-PVR.

I may be dropping cable TV to save money, they will probably be jacking up the rates at the end of the two year contract. We end up watching locals and movies most of the time. We very rarely watch the other cable channels. I think local over the air channels and Netflix with PlayON and SageTV will be a cheaper and better combination for us.

Dave

[J.K.B.]

They didn't take away our analog cable until a week ago and I haven't been able to get the boxes working with sage. There isn't a coax input option that I have been able to find when setting up the video sources, just a composite. In order to be able to use the combiner and 2 boxes, it would need to be coax... I haven't even tried to use the combiner yet since I would just like to get one working first. Any thoughts?

[sunray]

When you say that there isn't a physical coax input option, do you mean there's no option on the cable boxes or that there's no option on your tuner card. What brand and model are the cable boxes and what brand and model are the tuners that you are using?

[davephan]

Comcast provided us two free DTA set top boxes. They are very small and have one coax input and one coax output. If you have a DTA box, then you could hook it up to your cable TV coax and the to your HVR-2250's coax input jack. The DTA box is set for a channel 3 or 4 output. You can configure the HVR-2250 though SageTV to use the channel 3 or channel 4. After you hook it up, then you can test it manually by using the DTA box remote control. If that works, then you can use a USB-UIRT to control the channel switching on the DTA box.

If you try to run two DTA boxes, one on channel 3, the other on channel 4, then you will need the combiner because the simple splitter will not work.

It's important for you to check out the quality level. My setup works, but I think the output video and audio quality of the DTA boxes is lousy. I almost never record with them. I will be putting the DTA boxes on seldomly used TVs and move that HVR-2250 from my Windows SageTV server to my Linux SageTV server and use it for OTA digital TV.

If I'm not understanding your situation please rephrase it.


Dave

[J.K.B.]

I hooked the box up to my hvr with a coax, but when I try to set it up in sage, the only way I have found to be able to control it with my usbuirt is if I click on the composite option. There isn't a coax option that I could see that would allow use with the uirt.

I'm at work now so I don't have the options in front of me, but if I click on the tuner option, I don't think I could use the usbuirt. It wants the hvr to change the channel and not stay on channel 3.

I just need to know how to make sage see the coax input and still let me change the channel with the usbuirt. I'm sure it is something obvious, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet...

Thanks

[jptheripper]

unless you use the breakout cable or a/v header cable, connecting the dta to the coax of the 2250 not only limits you to one of the two tuners but (i think) blocks QAM.

That being said, you should pick tv tuner. then choose the "cable box" option and choose channel 3, and choose tune with usb-uirt.

the dta might be small but its still a cable box for sage purposes.

[J.K.B.]

Thanks, that answers my question, I just didn't go far enough with the tv tuner option. I didn't remember that you could still choose a cable box with that.

I'll see if I can get that working this evening.