Setup - Infinitv4 + HVR2250

[cclark89]

Hello,

I'm looking for guidance.

Now that I have a reliable Infinitv PCIe Card up and running, I have a spare HVR 2250 that is not being used. I have an open PCIe slot and might as well add the 2250 to my setup.

A Couple Questions:

1) Does WMC treat ATSC/NTSC separate from CableCARD tuners? Meaning, will I need Tuner Salad?
I would think WMC would treat the ATSC tuners separate, but I'm not sure if it considers the NTSC & CableCARD Tuners as the same type, which would put my setup over the max of 4 tuners, and thus require Tuner Salad....

2) I'm running W7 32 Bit with 4GB RAM. Am I asking too much of my machine? I don't really have to have the extra Tuners. I just feel bad letting a perfectly good card sit around (doubt I'd build a whole other machine just to use the extra card...so please don't suggest it).

3) How do I wire this?

With just my Ceton in the setup it goes like this:

Wall Cable Jack > Tuning Adapter > Ceton

My guess as to the best way to make this work:

Wall Cable Jack > 3 Way Splitter > Tuning Adapter, Ceton, HVR2250


I have a 2 - way splitter available right now. Any way to make just a 2way splitter work in this scenario? I'd prefer to put as little into this experiment as possible, given I'm not even sure how well my PC will handle a setup like this.

Thanks!

[Scallica]

WMC has a 4 tuner limit per tuner category; NTSC and CableCard are separate categories.

4GB of RAM is plenty, however, consider running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 in case you want to upgrade beyond 4GB in the future.

Yes, replace the 2-way splitter with a 3-way splitter. Do not use a cheapo splitter. Anatronix is a popular splitter brand.

[Tracer]

1) Does WMC treat ATSC/NTSC separate from CableCARD tuners? Meaning, will I need Tuner Salad?
I would think WMC would treat the ATSC tuners separate, but I'm not sure if it considers the NTSC & CableCARD Tuners as the same type, which would put my setup over the max of 4 tuners, and thus require Tuner Salad....

You would not need Tuner Salad, the 4 turner limit is for tuners of the same type. Media Center will see the HVR2250 as a QAM/ATSC/NTSC tuner depending on what type of feed it is getting.

2) I'm running W7 32 Bit with 4GB RAM. Am I asking too much of my machine? I don't really have to have the extra Tuners. I just feel bad letting a perfectly good card sit around (doubt I'd build a whole other machine just to use the extra card...so please don't suggest it).

No you shouldn't have an issue adding additional tuners, I'm currently running 10 tuners (4 cable, 2 QAM, 2 ATSC, 2 analog) with no issues running Win32 with 4gb and dual core processor. Unless your Media Center PC is already having issues keeping up with the 4 inifiTV tuners.

3) How do I wire this?

Depends on what type of feed you want the HVR2250 to receive. If you want QAM just split the cable TV feed going to the Ceton to both the Ceton and HVR2250. If you want ATSC then you'll need to add an attenna to the HVR2250. Analog do you really want to mess with analog, the only reason why I do is because my cable provider still offers the analog channel only in analog.

[TeddyR]

I know this is an old thread, but for the benefit of others and since I also get this question from several...

A CableCard type tuner can also get QAM channels...

example: I have 1xHVR2250 connected to Cable, 1xHDHR6CC connected to cable and 1xHDHRUS connected to cable, and 1xATSC Stick connected to antenna

without TunerSalad Footlong WMC detects

- 4 x CableCard Tuners [from HDHR6CC)
- 4 x QAM Tuners [2 from HDHR-US, 2 from HVR2250]
- 2 x Analog Tuners [2 from HVR2250]
- 1 x ATSC Tuners [1 from USB stick]
- 1 x FM Tuners [1 from HVR2250]

Therefore I can get a max of 8 QAM channels at once without Tunersalad

With TunerSalad in my setup I can see

- 6 x CableCard Tuners [[6 from HDHR6CC)
- 4 x QAM Tuners [2 from HDHR-US, 2 from HVR2250]
- 2 x Analog Tuners [2 from HVR2250]
- 1 x ATSC Tuners [1 from USB stick]
- 1 x FM Tuners [1 from HVR2250]

In this setup I can get 10 QAM channels simultaneously if all QAM capable tuners were being used for QAM.

The confusing items for some people is that the CableCard tuner can also receive QAM channels. This is why depending on the stations available, it would be advisable to "edit sources" and check ALL channels to make sure that the correct balance between tuners and functionality is configured. [example, the ATSC tuner is enabled only for the local stations that are not carried by cable]

[richard1980]

Digital cable channels are all QAM, regardless of whether they are encrypted or not. I believe what you are trying to say is CableCARD tuners can tune unencrypted QAM channels as well as encrypted QAM channels. Which means that by default, you could have 8 tuners that can tune unencrypted QAM channels (4 from a standard ClearQAM tuner and 4 from a CableCARD tuner).