Connecting Comcast HD to my PC

oregonguy

thanks for all the great info here... it really helps

I looked at the MyHD PCI HDTV Tuner for my WinXP box and I noticed that the tuner card is outputting HD in 1080i format.
I have the Dell 24" (like Tom) and want to use that for viewing HD off of Comcast too.
Will the 1080i vs 1080p be an issue?

thanks

rbinck

No not at all.

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oregonguy

ok... thanks

I tried to follow the discussion re: getting the HD signal into the MyHD card from a Comcast STB but didn't really get the final word. Did Tom end up having to abandon the Comcast HD because of STB issues... or is it possible to get HD to the card from a Comcast HD STB?

doane2

I got the Fusion card, got it installed and I wasn't impressed at all. The screen quality on analog and digital signals, and especially on the HD signals wasn't nearly as clear as on the Hauppauge, and I still had a lot of jerky HD signals. Lots of jpg artifacts showing and just generally not very clear.

I ended up sending it back and put the Hauppauge WintTV 1800 back in for one last try, but only after updating my Nvidia drivers from v6921 to v7516. I have it set up to use VMR7 and DXVA to take the load off the CPU and it is now playing back all QAM HD channels smoothly with hardly any jerkiness at all. ...Must have been the video card drivers.

After several emails back and forth with their tech dept they sent me patches to get my remote to work with my XP Pro and to get the TitanTV to work with their second software called WinTV 2000.. really odd, it doesn't work with the WinTV v6.
The HD channels on my Acer 22" LCD are pretty spectacular. The only problem now is that the HD higher res channels don't display on the full width of the screen in 16:9, while the lower HD duplicate channels do.. ODD. I'm going to email their tech again and find out why.

tom_in_atlanta

Sorry, haven't checked this forum in a while. I ended up dropping Comcast altogether. The only unencrypted HD channels in the Atlanta Market were the locals, and I can get them off the air with a good antenna.

I think you could take the HDMI signal off the Comcast set top box and input it to the DVI-D input on your monitor (with an HDMI to DVI-D cable. This would allow you to view the output of your set top box on your monitor. It would however bypass the MyHD tuner and you would have no DVR capability. You can connect the audio using RCA plugs.

I looked into cards that will take an HDMI signal out of a set top box and input it into your computer. They are expensive. The raw files are huge but I think they can be compressed using MPEG-2. This would work for on the spot recording but i didn't see any way to use a scheduled such as Titan-TV. The card cost $500. Beyond my budget.

I'm happy with my setup using OTA signals. The quality is very good and the signal strength is excellent. I have one antenna pointed south, and another pointed east and I get all the channels using the two antenna inputs on my tuner card for OTA reception.

Still getting some pixelization though on even the strong signals. I ran through all the tips on the AV Forum but haven't licked this problem. I freed up a PCI port now and I am going to try the daughter card and see if it makes a difference. I will let you know the results.

tom_in_atlanta

You don't have to use the daughter card on the MyHD tuner. The VGA output can handle HD resolution...

tom_in_atlanta

After much fuss and tweeking I replaced my MyHD MDP-130 tuner card with a Samsung DTBH260F terrestrial tuner. The advanced 5th generation chipset made a really big difference.

I had many problems with the MyHD MDP-130. It doesn't handle multipath interference well. I am in an urban location and had trouble with many of the OTA channels.

After trying several different antennas (Antennas Direct DB2, Channel Master 2016) I got a lot of flack from my landlord about the yagi so I replaced it with the Winegard Square Shooter SS-1000.

The Samsung DTBH260F far outperformed the MyHD MDP-130 tuner. Pixelization, signal loss, software bugs and crashes are a thing of the past. I miss the DVR capability, but the Samsung is a solid piece of hardware. I would highly recommend it.

All my OTA channels come in clear with strong signals and no visable interference. And the Winegard Square Shooter SS-1000 did everything it was supposed to do. It has an unobtrusive appearance and doesn't attract the ire of your landlord!

MonkeyMind

I'm so glad I found this thread and will read it in its entirety tomorrow before I order a new system from Dell. I just ripped my clunky old irritating Tivo as I await for my new HDTV to arrive and need a Tivo replacement solution without having to spend a million hours trying to make it work and make it easy for playback. Can some of you tell me what your PC configuration is?