Digital Cable - one guide - need HD on one tuner reg tv on other

[Kimper]

Unencrypted QAM is now working in Sage thanks to the guys over at http://www.silicondust.com/zxc/content/view/5/26/
But I am having some trouble getting the EPG straightened out and correct stuff recording on correct tuner.

Here is a diagram of my setup:


I have Time Warner cable. My problem is the Hauppage card cannot tune a HD channel and the HDHomerun will ONLY tune the HD channels. If I use the EPG that sage downloads for Time Warner Digital Cable there is no way to tell it only certain tuners get certain channels since it combines the EPGs. I tried to do a custom EPG for the HDHomerun, but ran into problems. For example I tried to add custom channel 104, but the HDHomerun isn't able to tune it with just that info.. I guess it gets subchannels and stuff from the downloaded EPG that I do not know.

I read Donkey's post over on the Autumnwave thread and went looking for my .frq file for time warner epg to see if I could figure out the subchannels and such from that, but I couldn't find a .frq file other than "Predefinedscan.frq"

I seem to recall folks having this problem with Firewire recording, but I can't find those threads/answers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Is XMLTV the answer to this?

I really wish Frey would improve the EPG functionality by allowing a lock of one tuner to one channel/epg line-up instead of always sharing the epg data with both tuners.

--This post was moved here, but I'm using Version 5 -- Seems more EPG related to me --

[SHS]

Hmmm if your on Time Warner Digital Cable like me it should be all encrypted QAM above channel 99 unless you use there Receiver box or I take that you got a CableCARD install?.

[Kimper]

All local broadcast (NBC,ABC,CBS,FOX,PBS) HD is unencrypted on Time Warner in San Antonio. Supposedly there is a regulation that Cable companies are not supposed to encrypt these, but some do anyway. Depends on your area/provider.

[thomaszoo]

I have firewire recording setup using a neighboring community's EPG lineup that is close to mine (I just disable the channels that aren't the same, ones that I wouldn't use anyway). It took a little bit of looking, but I'll bet you can find one, too.

[SHS]

All my local broadcast are in upper 500 channel which I think make in possable to get with QAM.
From what under stand there suppo to move Local Digital Broadcast on Cable to min 2 to max channel 69 in next few years maybe sooner.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Kimper

I really wish Frey would improve the EPG functionality by allowing a lock of one tuner to one channel/epg line-up instead of always sharing the epg data with both tuners.

What I, and others have done is to pick a second EPG for the second tuner. I have a digital cable lineup for my city assigned to one of my tuners for an STB, and a digital cable lineup for a neighboring city (it has the same channel lineup) for the firewire'd STB. With 2 separate EPGs, I can enable specific channels on one tuner without affecting the second tuner.

Now, adjusting a lineup for the QAM channels may be a pain, but if it is on its own EPG, it shouldn't affect the STB'd tuner's lineup.

[Kimper]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I have firewire recording setup using a neighboring community's EPG lineup that is close to mine (I just disable the channels that aren't the same, ones that I wouldn't use anyway). It took a little bit of looking, but I'll bet you can find one, too.

What I, and others have done is to pick a second EPG for the second tuner. I have a digital cable lineup for my city assigned to one of my tuners for an STB, and a digital cable lineup for a neighboring city

I will give that a shot once I get the HDHomerun working again. Between my tinkering around and some beta software updates I seem to have messed it all up.. geez HD implementation has been such a struggle.

All my local broadcast are in upper 500 channel which I think make in possable to get with QAM.
From what under stand there suppo to move Local Digital Broadcast on Cable to min 2 to max channel 69 in next few years maybe sooner.

SHS, you probably already know this, but it was news to me.. The assigned channel you punch into the digital cable box apparently has nothing to do with the actual physical frequency/channel number beaming along the cable. For example CBS HD here is like on digital channel 155. When you scan for it with something like HDHomerun it is on channel 112 subchannel 2. The whole channel/subchannel/physical channel/assigned channel really gives me a freaking headache.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Kimper

I will give that a shot once I get the HDHomerun working again. Between my tinkering around and some beta software updates I seem to have messed it all up.. geez HD implementation has been such a struggle.


SHS, you probably already know this, but it was news to me.. The assigned channel you punch into the digital cable box apparently has nothing to do with the actual physical frequency/channel number beaming along the cable. For example CBS HD here is like on digital channel 155. When you scan for it with something like HDHomerun it is on channel 112 subchannel 2. The whole channel/subchannel/physical channel/assigned channel really gives me a freaking headache.

This is par for the course. The cable operator actually transmits a signal on a separate channel that contains all the channel mapping info. If the HDHomeRun can receive this QPSK signal, and I think it's hardware should be able to do that, then it can also decode the channel map and make all this stuff fully automatic.

Look at my post here: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/vie...3af755c05d0cbb

thanks,
mike

[Kimper]

Got it all ironed out. My OTA Vbox card was throwing a wrench in the monkey works. I removed it and got the EPG and HDHomerun all fixed up. It is a great solution for QAM!

[Dekard]

Awesome... This is finally getting close to a reasonable solution...

2 questions, 1 can you post a screen cap of the reception? Just for kicks..

The second, how can I find out if my cable provider uses QAM? I've got Adelphia (soon to be Comcast) in the Atlanta, Ga area.

[tmiranda]

Dekard,

There is no easy way to find out. You can either call them and ask, ask a friend who has an HDTV with a tuner, or buy an HDTV with a tuner and try it yourself.

Tom

[Polypro]

Couldn't you have used your local OTA line-up and remapped to the QAM channel? Or did I read jafa's instructions incorrectly? Did you use the command line interface to scan for QAM 64 & 256? That should get you the mapping data.

P

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by Dekard

Awesome... This is finally getting close to a reasonable solution...

2 questions, 1 can you post a screen cap of the reception? Just for kicks..

The second, how can I find out if my cable provider uses QAM? I've got Adelphia (soon to be Comcast) in the Atlanta, Ga area.

It's almost a virtual certainty that your provider is using QAM, I've read about very, very few systems that do not use it. In fact, I would say you could literally bank on it.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Keenan

It's almost a virtual certainty that your provider is using QAM, I've read about very, very few systems that do not use it. In fact, I would say you could literally bank on it.

yup, most cable systems are running QAM. The more important question is "how many and what channels are unecrypted QAM"?

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

yup, most cable systems are running QAM. The more important question is "how many and what channels are unecrypted QAM"?

Yes, there it gets a little sticky. The "rule" regarding local broadcast channels being "in the clear" is interpreted a little differently with different cablecos. To the best of my knowledge, all the major ones, like Comcast and TW, send those channels in the clear. I believe former Adelphia systems do as well. Beyond the locals, most systems encrypt the rest of the HD lineup like ESPN-HD and Discovery-HD and of course the premiums like HBO.

One way to get an answer is to go to AVS Forums and to the thread for that particular area, Deckard is almost certain to get an answer there.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=453241
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