Very confused about HDTV capabilities

[dshields]

I have to ask some basic questions so I can get HDTV playback working.

I have SageTV 5.0.2 running as a windows service on a machine with 3 PVR 150's. One of these is hooked to a Comcast digital STB and we subscribe to a package that includes HD channels.

I have 2 MediaMVP clients and 1 PC client. The PC client has 2 HP 2335L monitors which are running at 1920 x 1200 resolution. The video card is an NVidia Quadro NVS 285. One MVP is connected to an RCA 52W59 TV.

When I try to watch HD channels on the PC client or either of the MVPs, I get nothing but a black screen and audio. (If I tune to std TV, everything works as expected.)

I don't know much about the video side of PCs. Can anyone recommend some basic troubleshooting steps? Thanks.

[gplasky]

Nothing to troubleshoot. You're not going to get HD out of your cable box with your setup. A different tuner card will get you over the air HD but there isn't a tuner card out there that will get you HD from your cable box. There are alternatives like the R5000 or a firewire connection to your cable box.(search the forums) Also some of the HD channels are encrypted (5c) and all of them would require a QAM capable tuner. Currently some tuners have QAM capability but need to use their own software. It's not built-into the drivers.

Gerry

[jquinlan]

Originally Posted by dshields

When I try to watch HD channels on the PC client or either of the MVPs, I get nothing but a black screen and audio. (If I tune to std TV, everything works as expected.)

It has to do with how you hooked up the cable box to your PVR-150's. The 150's can only input composite or S-Video, they do not have any HD inputs on the card, and from my experience with HD cable boxes those outputs will go black with audio because the boxes do not down sample the HD signal for the composite or S-Video outputs on the cable box. What you need is an HD capture card to record the full HD signal from a cable box and I don’t know of any, but someone else reading this may know of some.

This is the reason for the black screen with audio.

[dshields]

Originally Posted by gplasky

There are alternatives like the R5000 or a firewire connection to your cable box.(search the forums)
Gerry

Thank you. I have a lot to learn...