I have a question about seting up Vista Media Center to handle two OTA signals plus Dish Network Satellite TV.

I have Vista Home Premium and a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 TV tuner card. This card has two tuners that can be configured either for analog or digital. I have OTA antenna signals connected to the tuner card (no cable). One tuner is configured for analog and one is configured for digital. This card also has an S-video input. I would like to use the S-video to connect to the output from my Dish Network 301DP receiver. When all is said and done, I would hope that Media Center would handle my OTA analog, OTA digital, and Dish Network signals (three signals total). Unfortunately, it is my understanding that MC can't handle more than two sources. Is that true? If so, is there any way around this limitation? I would even be receptive to buying an additional tuner card with an S-video input if that would solve the issue.

The card that you have is capable of recording 2 programs at the same time.  Mixing in the way that MC works with tuners, that means you will have to select at the time of MC setup whether each of the 2 tuners is going to be analog or digital.  And that is how you currently have it configured.

MC does not support switching the tuner type on the fly (ie: record Program A on analog and then Program B on digital...all on tuner 1).  That is not supported.

In direct answer to your question, you cannot support both Dish Network and OTA analog on the same tuner nor on the MC configuration.  MC only supports a single source for analog and a single source for OTA digital.  However (and I do not know if this is possible) if the Dish receiver is capable of tuning the OTA analog and supplying it as a channel in the Dish lineup, then you will be able to merge them together.  I know that this can be accomplished by purchasing locals from Dish Network but that does require a fee.

But, lets be realistic here...if you are getting OTA digital and OTA analog is going away in February, this would be very short-lived even if you could get it to work.  Connect the Dish Network (recommend S-Video and L/R audio rather than the single coax) and OTA Digital and forget OTA analog.

 

 

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1: Dimension 9200 - Vista Ult, 2.4GHz Q6600 Core2Quad, 4GB RAM, 160GB, 750GB, 500GB USB, Nvidia 8300GS, PVR-150, HDTV Wonder, Vbox 3560, X360, DMA2100

2: HP m376n - MCE 2005, 2.6 P4 w/HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB, 400GB USB HD, Nvidia 6200, Emuzed MAUI, X360

Thank you for the comprehensive reply, Dan. You are correct that in February the analog OTA is going away. At that time I plan to configure both tuners on my tuner card to digital OTA. I assume that if I do that, my tuner card will not be able to handle the analog S-video for Dish Network, and even if I get an additional analog tuner card just to connect S-video, MC won't be able to handle it because of the two-source limit (unless there is a work-around that somebody knows about). Correct?

If you get an additional tuner or two, you can configure 2 tuners for OTA Digital (aka ATSC) and 2 tuners for Analog (which includes S-Video from a STB).

So in your case, up to 2 Dish Network receivers and 2 ATSC tuners.  If you do buy more cards, make sure that they have the correct inputs that you will need. 

 

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1: Dimension 9200 - Vista Ult, 2.4GHz Q6600 Core2Quad, 4GB RAM, 160GB, 750GB, 500GB USB, Nvidia 8300GS, PVR-150, HDTV Wonder, Vbox 3560, X360, DMA2100

2: HP m376n - MCE 2005, 2.6 P4 w/HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB, 400GB USB HD, Nvidia 6200, Emuzed MAUI, X360

Just curious...why wait until February?  All of the stations are broadcasting a digital signal now.

 

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1: Dimension 9200 - Vista Ult, 2.4GHz Q6600 Core2Quad, 4GB RAM, 160GB, 750GB, 500GB USB, Nvidia 8300GS, PVR-150, HDTV Wonder, Vbox 3560, X360, DMA2100

2: HP m376n - MCE 2005, 2.6 P4 w/HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB, 400GB USB HD, Nvidia 6200, Emuzed MAUI, X360

If MCETunerApp2.0 is still out there you can configure more than 2 tuners for digital and/or analog - it adds registry entries for the additional tuners.  I have 6 ATSC tuners available on my Vista PC.

DanH_HP_m376n:

Just curious...why wait until February?  All of the stations are broadcasting a digital signal now.

 

I appreciate all of the good information in this thread. Dan, to answer your question, all of the stations in my area are not broadcasting in digital yet. In particular, the station that broadcasts the Packers games (Fox) does not yet have a digital channel. To make a long story short, that station is fairly new and they were overlooked when digital assignments were initially handed out by the FCC. They do expect to complete the transition just in time for 17 Feb.

You've got to be kidding me!  Even if the FCC "overlooked" them, DTV and the upcoming end of analog has been known for many years.  Their choice to ignore it until the last minute is ridiculous.  What station is this?

If I were you, I would be complaining to the FCC about this station!

ktriebol:

I appreciate all of the good information in this thread. Dan, to answer your question, all of the stations in my area are not broadcasting in digital yet. In particular, the station that broadcasts the Packers games (Fox) does not yet have a digital channel. To make a long story short, that station is fairly new and they were overlooked when digital assignments were initially handed out by the FCC. They do expect to complete the transition just in time for 17 Feb.

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1: Dimension 9200 - Vista Ult, 2.4GHz Q6600 Core2Quad, 4GB RAM, 160GB, 750GB, 500GB USB, Nvidia 8300GS, PVR-150, HDTV Wonder, Vbox 3560, X360, DMA2100

2: HP m376n - MCE 2005, 2.6 P4 w/HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB, 400GB USB HD, Nvidia 6200, Emuzed MAUI, X360

Dan, the station is WFXS channel 55 in Wausau, WI. It's not the station's fault, though. Because they are a relatively new station, the FCC initially overlooked assigning a UHF channel to them for digital broadcast. They finally did get a channel assigned this summer, but there were some technical difficulties with that channel (can't remember the specifics on that) so they requested a different channel from the FCC. They just recently were assigned a different channel so now they are thrashing away to get it ready for February.

It's not out of the realm of possiblities.  Here in Albany, WNYA-HD is only available on cable because their digital TV assignment of 6 is actually used by analog channel WRGB.  They have to actually wait for the analog shutoff before they can go OTA HD.  This cost DIRECTV customers Friday Night Yankee games last season.

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Vista Ultimate Media Center | (2) DirecTV D11 IRDs | FusionHDTV OTA tuner | (2) Linksys DMA2100 Extenders | Xbox360 Elite Extender

That's a bummer.  I though that all stations were required to be running months ahead of the cutoff. 

ktriebol, if I were you, I would switch to Dish Network with their locals package (if available in your market) and then drop the package once all your digital channels are up and running in February.

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1: Dimension 9200 - Vista Ult, 2.4GHz Q6600 Core2Quad, 4GB RAM, 160GB, 750GB, 500GB USB, Nvidia 8300GS, PVR-150, HDTV Wonder, Vbox 3560, X360, DMA2100

2: HP m376n - MCE 2005, 2.6 P4 w/HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB, 400GB USB HD, Nvidia 6200, Emuzed MAUI, X360