[mythtv-users] Problems testing my card.

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Batshua bat Yehonatan wrote:
> So, right now it's coax to converter box.  There's one coax cable going 
> from the wall into the box, and one coax cable going from the box into 
> my tuner card.  Is that the "wrong" setup such that I will have 
> unsuccessful attempts at finding channels?

I think that you will only find the channel that the box is tuned to.
But, once again, you have avoided the question, what is the box 
producing?  Analog or digital signal?

My box from RCN takes a coax in from the "wall" and sends a coax to my 
analog TV.  The output is an NTSC signal on channel 3.  When I tune my 
TV to channel 3, I can watch whatever channel the cable box is tuned to 
watch.

What are you expecting your cable box to produce for output?

> Should I instead be using a 
> coax splitter?  

Using how?

> I imagine then all I'll get is OTA, which sure is better 
> than what I'm getting now (literally nothing), but obviously, if the 
> converter box will play nice and let me watch, you know, Cable TV, that 
> would be ideal. 

I know the cable box will let you watch cable TV, that's its purpose.
It will succeed when you have everything cabled up correctly.  We're in 
the process of getting you set up correctly.

I feel a little bit like the hologram in "I, Robot".  My programming is 
limited, you will have to ask the right questions.

> I'm still in the very early stages of setting up.  The OS sees the tuner 
> card.  Everything is hooked up.  Am I starting in the wrong place by 
> trying to use scan?  Where should I be going from here?

I would start by plugging the cable from the wall directly into you 
turner card and do a channel scan.  That will tell you what unencrypted 
on your cable that can be tuned directly.

wall <==coax==> tuner card

If you wish to view/record any of the encrypted channels, you will need 
to change your setup to include your convertor box.

wall <==coax==> converter-box <==coax==> tuner

In the second case, your tuner card will only see what the convertor 
presents to it (it does *not* un-encrypt everything at once, it only 
un-encrypts the single channel it is tuned to, and only if it beleives 
you are subscribed to receive that channel).  It will send to your TV
(or in this case your tuner card) only the channel that it is tuned to.
How it sends that channel depends on how it was designed.  If its like 
my convertor box, it'll send it on NTSC channel 3 (or 4, sometimes they 
have a switch in the back to be able to select which).  Other more 
modern boxes might have a component-out which can be fed directly into 
your (newer) digital TV.  I haven't seen a convertor box which outputs 
an ATSC signal (they may exist, I haven't seen one).  So, if you are 
doing this setup, you need to know how to configure your tuner card to 
properly receive the signal from your convertor box.

Does this make sense?

> Thanks y'all,
> Batshua 

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)