Re: Need Some Expert Help With Media Center and Tuner Cards

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Thx for all of the help and replies. I did only plan on using 3 tuners
ideally, but all I really care about is getting at least 2 of them
working. I am only splitting the external Antenna for HD signal
two-way. I have a plain old rabbit ears for the analog signal. That way
the signal strength shouldnt lose much. Anything more than that is
awesome.

Anyways, I've done some troubleshooting and I think I've determined
some things. It seems my media does seem to see my HDTV Wonder it shows
up in my device manager as installed and working, but it gets no
signal.. When I disconnect the antenna from the Analog tuner and only
connect the HDTV Wonder, it says no signal found. When I connect it
back to the Analog Tuner it finds signal again. So apparently it's
either not recognizing the HD ATI card or I'm not getting signal
through it. I'm not really sure what to do from here.

I checked ATI's site and they say Rollup 1 is necessary for it to work,
but I have rollup 2 and I am assuming it is cumulative. I have updated
the driver, still nothing. I tried re-installing it. I'm thinking of
disabling the other card to see if it works, but I think it may be
necessary as a video card. And if I lose video, well. I'm not sure how
i'd get it back. Any ideas on what I could do in this scenario?

Maybe is should get that hack and use the Wonder as an analog tuner,
and just have them both be analog for recording and use only the HD
tuner on my TV for watching TV? That way I don't need the splitter. Is
that hack a good idea? Just how do I use the HD Wonder as an analog
tuner? Anyways, this would be a last resort. It would be nice to have
two HD signals, one on my TV and one through the HD wonder, and just
have the other card analog.


JW wrote:
Have you installed the MCE drivers for both your 550 card and for your HDTV
card and not the regular Windows drivers.
You certainly can use both in the same box others have doing for over a
year. In fact many users have 2 NTSC tuners and 2 HDTV tuners installed.
<hunter.ign@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1155686164.599261.174720@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unfortunately, I tried that. I set up the antenna outside, and ran a
cable to a splitter. I then ran one cable from the splitter to the back
of the 550 card and one to the ATI card. When I run the setup wizard,
it shows I only have one antenna and thus only one signal. Are you sure
I can use both an analog signal and an HD on the same box?




JW wrote:
Sorry Dana I responded before I saw your response hopefully I removed it
in
time so it doesn't show up.
JW
"Dana Cline - MVP" <dcline@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%234r4O$JwGHA.3264@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A analog tuner (i.e. from antenna or basic cable) and a HD tuner (from
HD
antenna) can coexist in a Media Center PC, and the guides are somehow
merged (I think HD channel numbers are over 100 and analog are all less,
but can't confirm as I don't have an HD tuner). So that part is no
problem.
You can even have a second analog tuner, and a second HD tuner, if you
have
the slots for them. So theoretically you could record two different
analog
channels and two different HD (over the air) channels at once, assuming
your PC was reasonably fast.

As for splitting, well, I have a powered splitter on my analog basic
cable
that sends the signal to a bunch of places, a MCE PC with 1 tuner by
the
HDTV, a Vista beta PC with two tuners in my office, an older
nonsupported
tuner on my XP Pro box, and about 6 TVs scattered thruout the house.
All
get a good signal. I'm not sure what the frequency is for HD signals,
but
you should be able to find a powered splitter that would let you send
it
to both your tuner and your TV (which presumablly has its own HD
tuner).
Ask around at a Radio Shack or Circuit City or similar place.

What you _can't_ do is merge two tuners that have different analog
signals, such as cable on one and satellite on the other. For some
reason
Media Center was built to have one tv guide, not one per tuner.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

<hunter.ign@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1155664493.421586.78390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ok, hopefully someone out there really knows his stuff. Ok, first, my
setup.

I have Window Media Center 2005 PC. It has a built in tuner card,
using
the ATI Theater 550 Pro Chipset or whatever. See here:

http://www.ati.com/products/theater550/index.html

or here:

http://gateway.com/dw/features_benefits/dw_ati.shtml


And I bought a second TV Tuner Card, an ATI HDTV Wonder Pro, see here:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6803863&type=product&id=1091099928443

or here:

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html





And finally, I got an HD Antenna and a splitter. See here:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6830824&type=product&id=1091101853739



Ok,so, what I want. I want to be able to record one channel and watch
another at least, or record two channels at once. Here are the
possibilities. My TV has a built in HD tuner, so, I can watch HDTV
there with the Antenna, it works fine. However, only one of my TV
tuner
cards supports HD. I was reading up that in order to set up two TV
antennas on a media center, they both have to be the exact same.
Meaning, I can't have an analog signal on one and Digital on another.

So my question is, is there any way around this? A "patch", perhaps
user made, to be able to set up two tuners on my media center, one
analog, and one digital?

If not, my next question, what about the splitter? Can I split the
signal this way - Connect one of the cables from the HD Tuner to my
TV, connect the other to my HD Tuner card, and set it up as analog,
and
finally, use the existing analog antenna on my other tuner card. That
way, I will have two separate analog signals on my Media Cetner, with
only the one digital going to my TV. Is it possible to use a splitter
on the HD antenna, the manufacturer says so, but the guys at best buy
and MS seem to say no. Not sure who to believe.

Ultimately, my ideal setup is, at least ONE HD signal and at least TWO
channels for recording and/or watching. Even better would be, three
signals for recording/wathing with at least one of them HD.

Is any of this at all possible with what I currently have? I really
don't want to have to pay another $300 for another tuner card and
another Antenna and the have to go install the damn thing. :|





.

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