US TV Tuner Question

What channels do they allow you to watch? Do they only let you see local channels like ABC, CBS, NBC? Or can you see stuff like MTV, Discovery, Travel channel?

Say I were to get one for when I go to University of Pittsburgh this fall. I was looking at the Hauppauge 950Q (what happened to Pinnacle, they don't make tv tuners anymore?) and was wondering what channels I would be able to receive and whether or not I should just stick to watching my shows online.

 

most university cable (in dorms) is just the basic package, channels 1-99. So you'll have MTV, Discovery, and Travel...but nothing like HBO, or G4, or anything cool like that

 

pinnacle sucks IMO (bad experience with 2 of their products).. it's sold to hauppauge (which is decent IMO)

for over-the-air... you get whatever channels that is being broadcast... check http://antennaweb.org to see what channels you get... i'd say a small antenna would give you a 5 mile radius, while a decent indoor/outdoor gives you 10-30 mile radius

if your school gives you free cable, then you'll get the free cable

my school gives me an option to subscribe to comcast cable(no free cable).... i'll get whatever channels that are in my package

EDIT:

http://www.pc.pitt.edu/housing/cablelineup.html

looks like you guys are lucky and have free basic cable... the TV Tuner(if you get one with NTSC/QAM) should pick up those channels plus maybe CBS/FOX/ABC HD on QAM

 

Cool, thanks for the responses! The Hauppauge 950q seems like the best one I can find.

 

I've been wondering about this too. Can I just plug this into my cable jack (we have 200+ channels) and then record my favorite shows?

 

a) if you have a STB (set-top box)

you can get a splitter for your current cable (that comes out from the STB to the TV), but this means that the TV and TV Tuner will be tuning in on the same channel becuase you only have ONE cable box that decrypts ONE channel at a time

if you want your TV Tuner separate, you will need ANOTHER cable box for your TV Tuner, so each device(TV and TV Tuner) can have separate access and can view different channels at once... the TV Tuner will get exactly the same number of channels as the TV

b) if you don't have a STB, or you don't want to rent a STB

for Comcast, they are still broadcasting cable through analog(basic cable, channels 1-70+)... if you connect your TV Tuner straight to the wall, you'll get those 1-70 channels(if your current cable still does this)... if you have a QAM tuner, you might get sone digital channels(mostly local news like ABCHD, CBSHD, FOXHD...

Comcast is switching to digital sometime soon... i called my local office and they say around next year... this means that this method will not work when they switch to digital(it'll probably be encrypted)... if you want to avoid the hassles, just pay the $3 a month for another STB

this pic below is my USB VOlar Max TV Tuner running on Windows 7 Media Center... connected straight to the wall socket, no STB, found channels 1-70 plus QAM








as long as you get a signal, you can record the signal (i.e. record TV)


i currently have this Volar Max USB TV Tuner... works nicely

 

So I have the Hauppauge 950Q and have no idea how to get it to work with Qam channels. We have one tv with a Tivo Series 2 (with a subscription for only local channels), and a Comcast Motorola DCH70 box that gives us Comcast On-Demand, plus and digital cable channels. The second tv has a Comcast DVR.

Since yesterday have tried to get the extra cable channels, yet all I can get is the ATSC channels with the antenna. I tried hooking my computer and the tuner up to the tv, tivo, and DCH70 box with all the types of inputs/outputs, yet scanning with the Hauppauge Wintv 7 software finds nothing. Also WMC stops at the part where it is supposed to download local channel info.

Please help.

Also, how am I supposed to get the tuner to work in my dorm?

 

ok... first, what windows are you using + 64 or 32bit?

can you watch TV without the comcast box?

if you think you can get cable channel without the box, you are looking at analoy... scan using NTSC.... if you scan QAM, you might get some channel in digital


i wish i had free comcast in my dorm room... now relying on OTA (6 channels)... might keep a computer at home 24/7 broadcasting aka slingbox

 

I am using Windows 7 RC 32-bit on my EEE. I have scanned in all of them and only ATSC picks up anything. You can watch tv without the Comcast box, it will be through the Tivo and only gives basic channels (2-69), you loose the On Demand an Travel, Discovery, Food Network, ect.

 

so you are hooking the coax directly up to the TV tuner...

and WinTV 7 gives you nothing on NTSC? screenshot of the scanning setting page?

screenshot of WMC too..... when you are setting up, it should say

"Found one Analog Tuner (Cable)
Found one Digital Tuner (QAM)"

downloading channel data takes a long time for me(5+ minutes)... give it half an hour before shutting it down

 

Which coax cable should I hook up to the tuner? There is the one that goes from the wall to the splitter, then two more that each go to the Tivo and the Comcast DCH70 box. I just started up media center again, so I will watch to see if it ever gets past "downloading tv setup data".

 

for now, unhook one of the coax out coming from the splitter(this means to disconnect either the tivo or DCH70) and connect that coax to the tv tuner

all the spliiter does is to split the signal... lower quality (for analog), but it does nothing else

if this works, you need to get a new splitter(3-way)+coax cable (monoprice.com seems cheap enogh... got my splitters+cables from them)

 

I get an error when trying to scan with the Hauppauge software. Forget it for now, I am about to leave to go to Florida for a family reunion, and won't be back until Tuesday.