Help with MythTV and HVR-1250

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Hi, I just built an HTPC for Linux and I can't get my free digital cable to work with my Tuner card. The specs are: ASRock mini-ITX with AMD Zecate E-350 (AMD ATI Radeon HD 6310), 2GB 1066 DDR3, 1TB Hitachi HDD, Hauppauge HVR-1250 PCIe.

My Cable company is Metrocast Starkville MS. Im assuming the cable is the same regardless.
I called the Cable company and they claim they do not know their Modulation or Frequency settings for Extended Basic Cable over QAM.
I have the current settings available in MythTV:
QAM-64, QAM-128, QAM-256, VBV-8, Terestrial
Cable, Cable High, Cable HRC High, Cable IRC High
It is running Ubuntu 10.10 x86


What do I need to do cause Ive tried just about every setting and it says timed out or locked.

 

[Athlon2K15]

install windows problem solved

 

[CJCerny]

The HVR-1250 can do NTSC, Clear QAM, and ATSC. That means you should be able to receive the analog channels from your cable as well as any Clear QAM channels they might have. ATSC is out because you have cable, not an antenna. Have you bothered to figure out what the NTSC and Clear QAM channels are from your cable provider yet? That's a good place to start. Once we know what you can legitmately receive, then we have some way of troubleshooting where the problem is. The NTSC channels are typically 2-69 or so on most cable providers. Additionally, all cable providers are legally bound to provide Clear QAM versions of the HDTV channels that you could receive with an antenna on their cable. Nothing else will likely be clear and you will not be able to tune it.

 

[erocker]

two possible solution groups to gleen from. I mean, it is a system builder issue and a Linux issue.

No, like everyone else, one thread per topic.

 

[Easy Rhino]

i think it has more to do with the fact that your tuner card has to be registered with the cable company to get access. that is, if they use a digital box tuner then it is probably encrypted.

 

[CJCerny]

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I sniffed a major fail in this project right from the start. You stated that you have digital cable and it sounds like you are hoping to tune all of the channels you receive with a tuner card. That will never happen. Not with a different tuner card, hardware, or a different OS. The cable company encrypts the digital channels (probably everything above 69) and you simply cannot build any kind of DVR (other than one that uses a Cable Card) to decrypt those channels at this point in time.

 

[Easy Rhino]

apparently if you hook your PVR up to your digital set top box using component cables then you should be able to record everything that way.

 

[CJCerny]

apparently if you hook your PVR up to your digital set top box using component cables then you should be able to record everything that way.

It's not a DVR at that point. It's just an analog capture card, which he does not have. He would still have to run the DVR functions from his cable box, not his HTPC.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

i think it has more to do with the fact that your tuner card has to be registered with the cable company to get access. that is, if they use a digital box tuner then it is probably encrypted.

It is straight from the wall no box. Came with the apartment. My other TV tuner card works fine.

There is no digital decoder box. I will post the Channel list soon. I get Extended Basic free with rent.

 

[Easy Rhino]

no digital encryption? so they use clearQAM ?

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Here is the channel line up. Remember, I have Extended Basic. we get ClearQAM.

 

[Easy Rhino]

this may be a linux issue even though i know that myth tv and hauppage tuners should work well together. it seems to me that if you are getting the unencrypted signal then the OS is not uncompressing the signal properly.

 

[CJCerny]

Here is the channel line up. Remember, I have Extended Basic. we get ClearQAM.

Okay, there is hope. Your first post said digital cable. Analog cable and Clear QAM we can tune.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Okay, there is hope. Your first post said digital cable. Analog cable and Clear QAM we can tune.

clearQAM is digital cable, it is just unencryped.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

install windows problem solved

I believe the issue here is that I do not want to use windows. Contrary to popular opinion Windows is not the only solution.

Okay, there is hope. Your first post said digital cable. Analog cable and Clear QAM we can tune.

Yeah, I think it is a backend problem or something but as far as I know it is set up right-minus the channel scanning problem. I can detect encrypted crap but not the unencrypted stuff. It seems to time out alot. When I contacted Metrocast, they claimed not to know their own modulation/freq settings BS!!!

They sent a tech out but we missed him. The idea is to set it up so i can sell it locally or just keep it. I want to plug it in to the cable and record/watch stuff. XBMC works great for internet stuff like revision3 ^_^ but Myth won't work yet.

 

[Easy Rhino]

When I contacted Metrocast, they claimed not to know their own modulation/freq settings BS!!!

their modulation is clearQAM. as long as your tuner supports that then you are fine. the frequency should not matter if you are running coax since all cable providers run on the same frequency. generally between 0 and 735 mhz. again, that does not matter though since the tuner is designed to pick that up.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

their modulation is clearQAM. as long as your tuner supports that then you are fine. the frequency should not matter if you are running coax since all cable providers run on the same frequency. generally between 0 and 735 mhz. again, that does not matter though since the tuner is designed to pick that up.

well, I was refering to the MythTv setting asking for QAM-64, QAM-128, QAM-256, Cable , Calbe High, Cable HRC High, Cable IRC High settings.

 

[Easy Rhino]

did you double check to make sure everything is compatible? your tuner with your OS, mythtv with your tuner, your tuner with your cable provider, etc?

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

did you double check to make sure everything is compatible? your tuner with your OS, mythtv with your tuner, your tuner with your cable provider, etc?

Tuner - Cable - YES
Tuner - Ubuntu - Yes
Tuner - MythTV - supposed to be according to wiki

 

[Easy Rhino]

Tuner - Cable - YES
Tuner - Ubuntu - Yes
Tuner - MythTV - supposed to be according to wiki

interesting. well i will be curious to hear what the tech says. let me know.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

interesting. well i will be curious to hear what the tech says. let me know.

im going to drop by the main office for metrocast here.

Im tempted to try the analog box thing they gave us for non- digital tvs when then switched to digital.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Ok. Starkville has a few Clear QAM HD channels, but the majority of their broadcast base is NTSC (ATSC replacement for non-high def). The signal is digital and the QAM is in there, but you should not be setting the card to receive QAM only.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_mythtvsetup

You should also post a picture of the menu you are looking at.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Metrocast told me that even though it is ClearQAM, it is actually encrypted due to licensing crap so they issued me a DTA box which I will give a shot. The screen I was looking at was the channel setup of the Mythbackend. It began on the capture card setup and went to the channel editor in sequence.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Ok. Starkville has a few Clear QAM HD channels, but the majority of their broadcast base is NTSC (ATSC replacement for non-high def). The signal is digital and the QAM is in there, but you should not be setting the card to receive QAM only.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_mythtvsetup

You should also post a picture of the menu you are looking at.

These are with and without the DTA box.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Like I said, set it to NTSC. With an N. ATSC Doesn't exist any more so why it set to scan for it? Fix that and you should be good cause that signal is not encrypted.