Comcast has rendered my Digital TV Tuner Card useless

sthompson · 05-28-2009, 07:24 PM

I hope someone can help me! I have a nice computer set up with all the bells and whistles including a Hauppauge TV tuner/capture card which receives both analog and digital signals. I'm WAS able to watch and record local and cable channels via Windows Media center. My cable line goes straight from the wall to my computer.

NOW Comcast has changed their service in my area to ALL digital so they are requiring me to use a Digital Transport Adapter. The problem is, by using that device, my computer tv tuner must be on channel 3 at all times. This means my Windows Media Center is useless and I can no longer program shows to record. If I don't use the Adapter then I only receive local channels.

I spent hours on the phone with Comcast yesterday only to be told too bad, we don't support tv tuners.

Does anybody have a solution? I thought my TV tuner card wouldn't need the adapter since it is able to accept digital signals...guess I was wrong :-(

Please help!!!!!

1inxs · 05-28-2009, 10:32 PM

Welcome to the DTVUSA Forum. I think you can thank the MPAA, cable companys and MS for the changes. They are doing what they can to boost their revenues. They don't want consumers recording programs. They want consumers purchasing at higher profit margins or renting short term. I think we'll see more of this in the future. There are some sharp users on the forum that might have a work around for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sthompson

I hope someone can help me! I have a nice computer set up with all the bells and whistles including a Hauppauge TV tuner/capture card which receives both analog and digital signals. I'm WAS able to watch and record local and cable channels via Windows Media center. My cable line goes straight from the wall to my computer.

NOW Comcast has changed their service in my area to ALL digital so they are requiring me to use a Digital Transport Adapter. The problem is, by using that device, my computer tv tuner must be on channel 3 at all times. This means my Windows Media Center is useless and I can no longer program shows to record. If I don't use the Adapter then I only receive local channels.

I spent hours on the phone with Comcast yesterday only to be told too bad, we don't support tv tuners.

Does anybody have a solution? I thought my TV tuner card wouldn't need the adapter since it is able to accept digital signals...guess I was wrong :-(

Please help!!!!!

Aaron62 · 05-28-2009, 10:35 PM

This is directly related to what TonyT posted today: Comcast DTV Changes (Let the gouging begin)

divxhacker · 05-29-2009, 12:50 AM

You might need to get a digital TV tuner card that's made for cable. I had to buy a new TV tuner USB dongle to add to the Analog Tv Tuner Card I have. If your cable company uses device ID registration, to allow only the devices they rent to you to access the shows, you're pretty much screwed.

I found about the latter when I tried to switch a newer Actiontec DSL modem for an older Westell as it doesn't have an anti-filesharing firewall. The Westell would not connect as it is no longer registered to my account, Verizon would not reactivate it. They could have told me that before I spent hundred buying DSL modems to test out - none of them would connect as Verizon refused to allow them on the network. They turned on fine and worked, but no Internet. Only my Actiontec. Bah!

A shame, really. Just buy a cable-compatible QAM digital TV tuner card with the correct datamap for your cable company. Hopefully the tuner card would be allowed to talk to the network.

bicker · 05-29-2009, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1inxs

I think you can thank the MPAA, cable companys and MS for the changes.

Actually, you can thank your neighbors for the fact that cable companies are going to all-digital. This change is basically happening for one reason: Many of your neighbors want more HD channels, so given that a cable can carry only so much data, to get more of what they want, the cable company has to provide less of what you want. And evidently your neighbors pay more for what they want than you pay for what you want so what they want prevails. That's what you should expect in a consumer marketplace.

You can also thank your neighbors for the fact that more and more channels are being encrypted, because many of your neighbors wouldn't think twice about stealing cable service if it wasn't digitally locked down.


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