As Adam had mentioned, the 150 won't work on your cable service now that they've gone digital. I'm on Comcast and they made the switch-over here in March 2009. I was able to continue using my old analog WinTV card by incorporating their converter box. My TV card stayed tuned to Channel 3 and I had to use a serial port IRBlaster (http://www.irblaster.info/) and a script to send signals to the box to change to the correct channel for recording.
Initially, Comcast carried all their non-premium channels in clear QAM (e.g., History, TLC, Syfy, TruTV), so I was able to view them on my new flatscreen TV without the Comcast box since the TV supported clear QAM. Recently, I decided to replace my analog TV card with a new Hauppauge WinTV HVR 950Q USB tuner. Since this unit supported clear QAM, I figured I could get rid of the Comcast box and IRBlaster kludge. Although the USB tuner itself works fine, unbeknownst to me at the time of my purchase, Comcast has since dropped most of the channels carried in clear QAM. In other words, if I want to get all the channels included in my cable plan, I have to use one of their cable boxes to tune them in, regardless of the TV card's native capabilities. Unless you want to receive over the air broadcasts in ATSC, I can't think of a good reason to get a "digital" card. Clear QAM, which is supported by the new cards, is beholden to your cable company's largesse... initially, you may get all your channels, but the cable company may switch them around (which will mess up your scheduled recordings) or remove them entirely without notice. By the way, when my cable company made the switch to digital, they offered subscribers a free set-top box (with on-demand capability) and up to two additional limited function "digital transport adapters". I used one of the latter boxes for my Freevo system. So, it's possible your cable company too may not charge an additional fee for a converter box. Art S R 2010/8/6 Adam Charrett <a...@dvbstreamer.org>: > > > On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Evan Hisey wrote: > >> And as a follow up, if this is a no go as I suspect on the 150 any >> recommendations on a nice video card. The better half will mighty >> upset with me if we are not able to record her shows. >> >> Evan >> >> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Evan Hisey <ehi...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Hey gang- >>> I have looked around the Haupauge site but can find an answer to >>> this. What broadcast formats does the 150 support? My local cable >>> compaby is moving to QAM only signal and I am trying to figure out if >>> I am going to have to upgrade my card or not. >>> >>> Evan >>> >> > > The PVR-150 is an analogue only card you're going to need a new digital TV > card. Check out the linuxtv wiki for some suggestions on cards: > http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_Devices > The other issue you might find (I don't live in the US so don't know exact > details here) is that the signals are now encrypted rather than in the > clear. So you might find you can keep your PVR-150 but have to shell out to > the cable company for a set top box! > > Good luck! > > Adam > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF.net email is sponsored by > > Make an app they can't live without > Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge > http://p.sf.net/sfu/RIM-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Freevo-users mailing list > Freevo-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-users > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Make an app they can't live without Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge http://p.sf.net/sfu/RIM-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Freevo-users mailing list Freevo-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-users
