Extremely newbie questions: tuner connections & video card

[JORear]

I recently got two things: A WinTV-PVR-350 card and SageTV. I've been screwing around with it for a couple days and it seems like I've got some basic questions that possibly anyone could answer...well...anyone but me.

Dumb question #1 - I've got Comcast Digital cable (non-HD). Do I take the feed right out of the wall into the card or run the descrambled line from the cable box into the card?

Dumb question #2 - Since it's coax, this counts as "TV Tuner" as a video source. Correct?

Dumb question #3 - I cannot change my video rendering mode from Overlay to VRM9. It always says that I need a video card with at least 32 MB (mine has 64 MB) and that I need the latest version of DirectX (running 9.0c)...is my video card (GeForce4 440 MX SE) just not supported? Should I get a new card?

Dumb question #4 - Attaching on to the question above...I cannot seem to go into full screen mode. It wipes the screen like it is going into full screen, but backs out and remains in a window. I'm running the latest driver package from NVIDIA, so I guess the question again is whether or not it's my video card?

Sorry for these really basic questions. If this is not the correct forum, just tell me where to post. Thank you in advance for any assistance. It's much appreciated.

[Opus4]

I'll leave the video card questions for someone else, but:

Originally Posted by JORear

Dumb question #1 - I've got Comcast Digital cable (non-HD). Do I take the feed right out of the wall into the card or run the descrambled line from the cable box into the card?

Can the coax go directly into the TV? If so, then it can connect directly to the tuner. But, since you said it is digital cable, you probably have to go through the converter box.

Dumb question #2 - Since it's coax, this counts as "TV Tuner" as a video source. Correct?

That depends on how you are connecting, based on question 1. If going through a box, you will probably be connecting via svideo. If the output from the box is still via coax, then you wold use the TV Tuner input during setup, but you would tell it to use an external receiver & tuner it via a single channel.

BTW: you would need a way to have SageTV tuner the channels on the box. You could use an IR blaster like a USB-UIRT to do that.

- Andy

[JORear]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Can the coax go directly into the TV? If so, then it can connect directly to the tuner. But, since you said it is digital cable, you probably have to go through the converter box.

That's what made sense to me as well. I wasn't presuming that the PVR card was capable of descrambling the digital video signal. Obviously it takes us to response #2

Originally Posted by Opus4

That depends on how you are connecting, based on question 1. If going through a box, you will probably be connecting via svideo. If the output from the box is still via coax, then you wold use the TV Tuner input during setup, but you would tell it to use an external receiver & tuner it via a single channel.

BTW: you would need a way to have SageTV tuner the channels on the box. You could use an IR blaster like a USB-UIRT to do that.

- Andy

This is something that I definitely didn't do. I remember that option in the setup though. I'll have to give that a try when I get back to work on it later.

The Hauppauge package came with an IR blaster and remote. I did get that to work after much fiddling.

Thanks for the responses.

[chughes]

Just to expand on Opus4's reply a bit, it may not be necessary to use the cable box at all. Where I live, my cable provider insists on selling you "digital" cable, but in reality, it is simply godd 'ol analog cable. The "digital" part is only in the specialty channels that are delivered digitally, or if you subscribe to digital services, like movies on demand. Some in here will tell you that you should absolutlely have the coax go into the cable box then back out to your tuner card. I had so many problems with my cable box that I just abandoned it and ran straight from the wall into the tuner card. I dont use any of the "digital" services, so it's fine for me.

I'm only saying this in case you have trouble getting that Hauppauge IR balster to work with your box. I found the hauppauge blaster to be a bit unresponsive, so I shelled out for a USB-UIRT, which is outstanding.

[JORear]

Originally Posted by chughes

Just to expand on Opus4's reply a bit, it may not be necessary to use the cable box at all. Where I live, my cable provider insists on selling you "digital" cable, but in reality, it is simply godd 'ol analog cable. The "digital" part is only in the specialty channels that are delivered digitally, or if you subscribe to digital services, like movies on demand. Some in here will tell you that you should absolutlely have the coax go into the cable box then back out to your tuner card. I had so many problems with my cable box that I just abandoned it and ran straight from the wall into the tuner card. I dont use any of the "digital" services, so it's fine for me.

I'm only saying this in case you have trouble getting that Hauppauge IR balster to work with your box. I found the hauppauge blaster to be a bit unresponsive, so I shelled out for a USB-UIRT, which is outstanding.

Well I asked the question because I tried it both ways (straight from the wall plug and through the cable box) and neither gave me a picture. Obviously if I need to run it through my cable box, I need to set it up to use an external device. I didn't even think about that....but coming straight from the wall I only got blackness.

[JORear]

Going completely insane now. Can't get this to work for the life of me.

I wiped out the system I'm building and reinstalled. Hell, I even picked up a new video card (GeForce FX 5500 128MB) in case that was the problem. Just reinstalled SageTV 5 and I cannot go to either Full Screen mode or change the video renderer to VMR9. Every time it tells me it can't enable 3D Acceleration. Not to mention that when I hook it up to my cable (going through the tuner or not) I get no playback and ever since I rebuilt it, now I can't get the Hauppauge 45 button remote to initialize. It fails every time.



Here's my system

Dell Dimension 4100
Pentium III 866MHz
512 MB (133MHz) Ram
GeForce FX 5500 128MB
WinTV-PVR-350

Windows XP SP2 (updated)
I'm running DirectX 9.0c (tested)
84.21 NVidia Forceware Drivers

I'm starting to think that I'm cursed.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by JORear

Just reinstalled SageTV 5 and I cannot go to either Full Screen mode or change the video renderer to VMR9. Every time it tells me it can't enable 3D Acceleration.

WinTV-PVR-350

Are you using the TV out connection on the 350? Even if you aren't, did you turn it on in SageTV? If so, if won't go full screen & may not allow enabling 3D acceleration, but I'm not sure about that last part.

- Andy

[JORear]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Are you using the TV out connection on the 350? Even if you aren't, did you turn it on in SageTV? If so, if won't go full screen & may not allow enabling 3D acceleration, but I'm not sure about that last part.

- Andy

I was actually just trying to get it all running with a monitor before I dealt with the TV Out portion. Oddly enough, I uninstalled all of Sage, then reinstalled the entire Hauppauge CD's setup...and installed SageTV 2.2 off of the CD. That version let me get into Full Screen mode, and allowed me to select VRM9. I haven't moved the computer back to my cable outlet yet, but it's been a little more promising.

[JORear]

Update....I got everything to work....on Version 4.0. I tried to upgrade to 5 and no dice. I think I'm going to be forced to roll with the old version for a while.