Disappointment with Vista TV Pack & HD650 PCI

[cromwell]

Reformatted my computer to do a clean install of Vista Ultimae 32 bit and the Vista Media Center TV Pack so I could use the "supposedly" dual tuner capability of my Visiontek HD650 PCI. Not! Ran the setup and all I could get was single analog tuner output. Re-ran setup and manually chose digital, but nada again. Even tried to manually add the digital channels, but VMC was having nothing to do with that either. Nothing would display.

Just a heads up for those that that think it might work for them.

Dal1745 did mention that the PCI-e HD650 would do this. I guess I'm going to have to install Windows 7 Ultimate to make it work for the PCI card. Paulgo wrote that it was working for him. I was hoping to wait on Service Pack 1 before I upgraded. Oh well!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[caveman-jim]

The PCI card is not a dual tuner, it's an either/or, AFAIK. The PCIe versions have the capability to expose both at the same time.

 

[DA1745]

Reformatted my computer to do a clean install of Vista Ultimae 32 bit and the Vista Media Center TV Pack so I could use the "supposedly" dual tuner capability of my Visiontek HD650 PCI. Not! Ran the setup and all I could get was single analog tuner output. Re-ran setup and manually chose digital, but nada again. Even tried to manually add the digital channels, but VMC was having nothing to do with that either. Nothing would display.

Just a heads up for those that that think it might work for them.

Dal1745 did mention that the PCI-e HD650 would do this. I guess I'm going to have to install Windows 7 Ultimate to make it work for the PCI card. Paulgo wrote that it was working for him. I was hoping to wait on Service Pack 1 before I upgraded. Oh well!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi, i need to find and update my posts, hopefully i have them bookmarked; and i have some new testing to do
So, it's a crazy confusing world out there with these damn cards. I just bought the Dimond TV Wonder 650 PCI <=== PCI not PCI-E and yes it's very confusing, because according to the box(es) I haven't yet installed them in a systemthough, but it IS actually a DUAL TUNER...
I know, I know... the "OLD" TV wonder 650 PCI - is only a single tuner hybrid (either NTSC OR ATSC/Clear QAM) but this "NEWER" Diamond PCI is listed as Dual. It does on the very back mention Clear QAM on the Box and mentions dual recording. ...SO i'll have to see what's what to know for sure.

In a round about way i'll bring this back to you and what you referenced about what i said... regarding the TV Wonder 650 PCI -E <==PCI-E. I had no trouble getting it to find and detect BOTH tuners under Vista (In early 2009, I had even updated that system to the best i could run in it: Catalyst 9.3 Display drivers (because it's a legacy graphics card X1950XT) & the corresponding 9.3 TV Wonder drivers. (In that system I had installed the VISTA TV media pack and was able to get Clear QAM and Analog just fine - detected and recording simultaneously.

HOWEVER, Fast forward to beginning of this year 2010 and trying to get my TV Wonder 650 PCI -E to work in Windows 7 (HD3870 Graphics card) - I tried initially the 10.1or 10.2 Catalyst display drivers paired with the TV Wonder 750 (USB drivers) they installed fine and W7 Media Center detected both tuners, BUT i could only get =EITHER= the analog tuner =OR= the digital tuner to work at one time. ((I erroneously thought at the time this was bc the 750 USB is only a hybrid tuner and so it was applying that to my (dual tuner card). When the actual W7 TV Wonder 650 PCI, PCI-E, etc. drivers came out I uninstalled all old ATI Software & then ran Driver Cleaner Pro to remove everthing from the registry and Updated to Catalyst 10.3 display drivers & 10.3 TV Wonder 650 Drivers for W7. BOOO!!! Same thing happened.

I spent a few days posting around at all of the sites and some great person on the green button responded that the same thing had happened to him. He gave no explanation as to why some not all are having the problem (maybe even it's just a few of us), but to fix it he suggested i do as he did and use an OLD version of the TV Wonder 650 Drivers (he was using 9.3 Vista). And since i was coincidentally using it on my Vista system i thought it was worth a try.
It's been a while i'd have to go back and look at my notes i posted (can't remember whether i had to unfold the files to the C:\ATI folder and then use device manger to update & point the updater to the drivers in that folder - That seems right) ANYWAY with the OLD TV Wonder 650 9.3 (vista) drivers everything worked fine then under W7.

So something they have done or changed in the driver for the TV Wonder 650 has happened from the 9.3 version to the 10.1,10.2,10.3 versions. I never felt the need to update my Vista system each month, so i don't know in which version things started to go wrong.
I NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO A PROPER BUG REPORT TO ATI to have them look into it.

SO the problem was solved by going to the older drivers. IDK if i'd have the same problem in Vista trying to install the new TV Wonder drivers... but that's not somthing I will need to test out anytime soon. Windows 7 & Vista (different systems) recognize and opperate both tuners independently with the 9.3 TV Wonder drivers.
=========================================================
So before you give up hope i'd try installing an older version say TV Wonder 650 9.3 (vista) drivers and see what effect that has on your tuner situation.
=============
Hopefully, i'll get my other test bed ready to try my Diamond TV Wonder 650 PCI - Dual tuner cards out. I'm VERY Curious and apprehensive as to whether they will truly be dual & if so whether they can do Clear QAM.
PLEASE do keep me in your loop (PM and such so if i come back in a week or a few i'll get an update of how it's working out for you and hopefully i'll have some insight into the situation my self.)
------
I also bought an Asus My Cinema PHC3-150 (Dual tuner PCI <== PCI card ) that i'd excited to try out as well.
==========================================

The PCI card is not a dual tuner, it's an either/or, AFAIK. The PCIe versions have the capability to expose both at the same time.

Well, that was certainly true of the ORIGINAL TV Wonder 650 PCI, however the Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Dual Tuner (TVW650PCIV) - (UPC 7 57448 00907 1) says it's a dual tuner. I picked up two at Microcenter on sale, so hopefully they'll work out.

 

[paulgo]

The 650 PCI has the ability to do both analog and digital (either clear QAM or over the air digital). You need to hook up an antenna to both tuner inputs on the 650 PCI (one input is analog and one is digital). The AIT Calalyst Media Center (update on ATI site) will do both (one at a time by choosing the tuner source). I was able to do this when using Vista 64.

Their is only one version of the ATI 650 PCI tuner - the newer ATI software allows you to do clear QAM. Under Windows 7 64 bit the ATI Catalyst software can only do analog but the Windows Media Center can do both analog and digital at the same time.

 

[DA1745]

The 650 PCI has the ability to do both analog and digital (either clear QAM or over the air digital). You need to hook up an antenna to both tuner inputs on the 650 PCI (one input is analog and one is digital). The AIT Calalyst Media Center (update on ATI site) will do both (one at a time by choosing the tuner source). I was able to do this when using Vista 64.

Their is only one version of the ATI 650 PCI tuner - the newer ATI software allows you to do clear QAM. Under Windows 7 64 bit the ATI Catalyst software can only do analog but the Windows Media Center can do both analog and digital at the same time.

Thank you for your update. Couple of questions and corrections...

1). You mentioned ATI (cyberlink's) CMC "will do both (one at a time by choosing the tuner source)." -- So does that mean the Muti-view (aka Picture in picture isn't working with that card or ???)
2)."Their is only one version of the ATI 650 PCI tuner -" - This can't be correct. The Original 650 PCI (not PCI-E) was a single hybrid tuner (either NTSC or ATSC/CLEAR QAM but not both. The other input was FM TUNER.
=== So it's possible that the Visiontek model that the OP has is only the original 650 PCI... Would be nice to see the pictures close up of the boards inputs to know for sure.
3) So are you also saying that there is a new-new update to CMC at ATI's site? I'm going to go investigate. There was a tiny minor update to CMC a few years back but that's the last i've seen. CMC has been able to (poorly) tune Clear QAM in Vista for a number of years.

 

[paulgo]

I have the original ATI 650 PCI tuner - it also does FM - originally it was only advertised to do over the air digital and analog (as well as FM) the software update allowed it to do clear QAM as well. Also the Windows 7 Microsoft media center allows it to do FM as well as analog, QAM and ATSC. Only the PCI E has two tuners
From the ATI site for the 650 PCI:
Single, hybrid tuner. Attach an amplified HD antenna1 or your analog TV cable2 and you can watch, pause, or record HDTV on your PC. Supports over-the-air digital TV / HDTV1 (ATSC) and cable analog TV (NTSC), Clear QAM (unscrambled) digital HD cable2 and FM radio.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/pctv/tv-wonder-tuners/Pages/tv-wonder-hd-650-pci-ntsc-atsc.aspx

 

[DA1745]

Reformatted my computer to do a clean install of Vista Ultimae 32 bit and the Vista Media Center TV Pack
-actually that wasn't entirely necessary - many others including myself have installed and used the TV Media pack on Vista systems that were up and running for some time already but bygones, since you already did it-
so I could use the "supposedly" dual tuner (Hybrid - one =or= the other at a time and yes this card does support that capability) of my Visiontek HD650 PCI. Not! Ran the setup and all I could get was single analog tuner output. Re-ran setup and manually chose digital, but nada again. Even tried to manually add the digital channels, but VMC was having nothing to do with that either. Nothing would display.
Sometimes, VMC & W7 Media Centers are qwirky, and don't find the digital tuners the first time, if that persists then check suggestions below about cable signal strength, cable type and removing all splitters while your testing.
If VMC & W7 MC don't find a single Digital channel then they don't show any of the digital channels in the lineup so there is no possible way for you to manually add the channels (just so you know i've experienced this about 4 times in many setups so it's nothing too alarming) so you have to rescan until it finds and detects the digital tuner correctly and detects some digital channels --> See below.

Just a heads up for those that that think it might work for them.

Dal1745 did mention that the PCI-e HD650 would do this. - But that was a different issue that was driver releated and I have both tuners working in W7 using the Vista TV wonder 650 9.3 drivers.
I never had any trouble with the TV wonder 650 in Vista Ultimate + TV Media Pack getting Clear QAM (though you have to manually add / map some of the digital stations that my local provider does not identify... Media center only seems to map those Clear QAM channels that my cable provider sends off to titan or ? where - ever. But see below for a possible cause & test /fix of your problem Cromwell.

I guess I'm going to have to install Windows 7 Ultimate to make it work for the PCI card. Paulgo wrote that it was working for him. I was hoping to wait on Service Pack 1 before I upgraded. Oh well! => I don't think #1 that - that's necessary or going to solve the problem. Unless there was some issue (like you got a corrupt copy of the Vista TV Media Pack or it didn't have the parts it needed, then W7 and Vista TV Media Pack are very very similar and if that fixes your issue then something is wrong with your TV Media Pack? Where did you get it?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

In reading again what you wrote more carefully, if it were me i'd try this: my suggestion is to take out any splitters you have in and run the Coax tv tuner cable into the digital only side straight from the wall. (splitters cut the signal and what's necessary to find and detect Clear QAM is much greater than NTSC channels. Also do you have a HDTV with a Clear QAm tuner that you could also hook up and test?
The right size cable. My house was full of RG-59 cable and that won't cut it either. You need RG-6 or better to carry Clear QAM well (yes sometimes you can get away with a short hop with RG-59... signal strength from you cable is a BIG factor though in all of this. Some people require them to come out & test to make sure that the signal is strong enough and boost it if it's not.

Additionally, do you know that your cable company or market is broadcasting any Clear QAM channels?
This is where an HDTV (w/ Clear QAM) comes in handy to double check your test.
DESPITE what MANY MANY MANY people say, the cable companies ARE NOT REPEAT are not mandated by the FCC to carry the local affiliates in Clear QAM, they have a requirement to carry them but NTSC ful-fills that requirement so check / call your cable company and find out what channels you should be receiving.
You can use Silicondust's website (maker of the HDHomerun) to check what Clear QAM channels you should be able to receive in your location.
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us
Make sure at the top you change it from Digital antenna to Digital Cable (Clear QAM).



Once you've gotten right to the source of where cable comes into your house, and are using a good RG-6 Cable, then with just the digital side of the Tuner hooked up, re-scan for just digital.

I finally got a chance to get first one and now both of my TV Wonder 650 PCI cards into my hybrid media system and they both test out good.
I tri-booted with XP MCE 2005, XP 64bit, and W7 32 bit. Installed and tested CMC in the first two, though they also work in MCE 2005, and under W7 I was also able to test the Clear Qam functionality and that is working nicely too.
I used 10.4 drivers for Catalyst and TV Wonder Drivers and had no issues (like i had before with PCI-E card), but i dont' think they can be compared at all because the issue i was having related specifically to having a dual tuner and not being able to get both to work simultaneously; just to be on the safe side as well i tested this the other day in MCE 2005 and both NTSC on the seperate 650 PCI cards worked simultaneously, so again your issue is most likely with SIGNAL Strength. Either you've got it split too many times, or the cable companies feed it too weak to begin with or your cable can't support the bandwidth or some combination of both.

The PCI card is not a dual tuner, it's an either/or, AFAIK. The PCIe versions have the capability to expose both at the same time.

You & Paulgo were right. For a brief time there I was thinking that maybe the new "Diamond" version of the card, the one where they specifically say "DUAL Tuner" on the box was a new card, that actual does have dual tuning, it DOES NOT!!
They know better than to call it a dual tuner.
It's a hybrid card and they should have called it that seeing that they have multiple years selling this TV Wonder 650 PCI that way.
But that's not what Cromwell is saying, he's not able to get it to detect Digital AT ALL and that's definately something the card can do.

Hi, i need to find and update my posts, hopefully i have them bookmarked; and i have some new testing to do
So, it's a crazy confusing world out there with these damn cards. I just bought the Dimond TV Wonder 650 PCI <=== PCI not PCI-E and yes it's very confusing, because according to the box(es) I haven't yet installed them in a systemthough, but it IS actually a DUAL TUNER...
BAD MARKETING SHAME ON YOU DIAMOND!! Not a Dual tuner which is what I thought when i originally bought them but was tricked by the directions & packaging.
I know, I know... the "OLD" TV wonder 650 PCI - is only a single tuner hybrid (either NTSC OR ATSC/Clear QAM) but this "NEWER" Diamond PCI is listed as Dual. It does on the very back mention Clear QAM on the Box and mentions dual recording. ...SO i'll have to see what's what to know for sure.

=============
Hopefully, i'll get my other test bed ready to try my Diamond TV Wonder 650 PCI - Dual tuner cards out. I'm VERY Curious and apprehensive as to whether they will truly be dual & if so whether they can do Clear QAM. NO not dual tuner should have gone with my first belief (after all i bought two anticipating this so I'm not too bitter), and Yes both do Clear QAM as long as you used W7 or -- have to assume the same would be for Vista W/ TV Media Pack installed though...

The 650 PCI has the ability to do both analog and digital (either clear QAM or over the air digital). You need to hook up an antenna to both tuner inputs on the 650 PCI (one input is analog and one is digital). The AIT Calalyst Media Center (update on ATI site) will do both (one at a time by choosing the tuner source). I was able to do this when using Vista 64.

Their is only one version of the ATI 650 PCI tuner - the newer ATI software allows you to do clear QAM. Under Windows 7 64 bit the ATI Catalyst software can only do analog but the Windows Media Center can do both analog and digital at the same time.

See you have to be careful with your wording, that's the same thing that tripped me up with Diamond ---> they intentionally (IMO) are using non-standard terminology. The 650 PCI has the ability to do (EITHER) Analog (NTSC) ==OR== Digital (ATSC/Clear QAM).

Thank you for your update. Couple of questions and corrections...

1). You mentioned ATI (cyberlink's) CMC "will do both (one at a time by choosing the tuner source)." -- So does that mean the Muti-view (aka Picture in picture isn't working with that card or ???)
Ok, that makes sense I did try it with both cards and the Multiview was a PITA, I'd unhook all but the two analog inputs to each of the TV wonder 650 PCI cards but CMC would only every once in a while get it right and do multiview with both analog (ntsc) inputs. It kept trying to find and scan for the digital tuners. GRRRRRRRR! But I answered my own question though CMC does detect and can use multi-view which is about the only thing I would ever really consider using CMC for these days for some fast PIP switching action.
2)."Their is only one version of the ATI 650 PCI tuner -" - This can't be correct. The Original 650 PCI (not PCI-E) was a single hybrid tuner (either NTSC or ATSC/CLEAR QAM but not both. The other input was FM TUNER.
=== So it's possible that the Visiontek model that the OP has is only the original 650 PCI... Would be nice to see the pictures close up of the boards inputs to know for sure. - Nope you're right same single hybrid (Either Tuner not both at the same time unless you do two cards).
3) So are you also saying that there is a new-new update to CMC at ATI's site? I'm going to go investigate. There was a tiny minor update to CMC a few years back but that's the last i've seen. CMC has been able to (poorly) tune Clear QAM in Vista for a number of years. - Answered that one myself, no the CMC is still the same old same ole' there is the Update / patch but with the two cards in XP MCE 2005 CMC got even more unstable after running the patch and doing a few restarts. CMC would crash and remain in that state, after restarting it would start but usually crash soon.
Basically it's a last priority software.
Since i'm not keeping any of theose partitions alive I thought i'd un-install CMC (power cinema 4) and try out the newest 6 version for giggles.

I have the original ATI 650 PCI tuner - it also does FM - originally it was only advertised to do over the air digital and analog (as well as FM) the software update allowed it to do clear QAM as well. -- Ok that update was a long time ago, i was trying to find out if you meant some newer update for CMC was out there on ATI's site, yes I do know the 650's history though I just had a momentary brain fart and fell for Diamond's deception on the card. I just thought for a second there maybe it was something new, since they were incorrectly calling it a "dual tuner" why i can see where someone might refer to it like that INCORRECTLY - the industry standard and (ATI) the 650 PCI as a "Single Hybrid Tuner" as opposed to a "Dual tuner" - the 650 PCI-E (which also confuses people), because it would have been better called (two independent tuners). ATI, Avermedia, and Hauppauge all settled on Combo for those two tuner setups... but when your sleep deprived sometimes the obvious flys right over my head.
Hauppauge then screwed things up a bit more when they called their "Dual Hybrid Tuner" card a (Dual Tuner)... which had they all planned it out would have been the name that makes the most sense but not since it was already used for the combo cards....

Also the Windows 7 Microsoft media center allows it to do FM as well as analog, QAM and ATSC. Only the PCI E has two tuners
From the ATI site for the 650 PCI:
Single, hybrid tuner. Attach an amplified HD antenna1 or your analog TV cable2 and you can watch, pause, or record HDTV on your PC. Supports over-the-air digital TV / HDTV1 (ATSC) and cable analog TV (NTSC), Clear QAM (unscrambled) digital HD cable2 and FM radio.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/pctv/tv-wonder-tuners/Pages/tv-wonder-hd-650-pci-ntsc-atsc.aspx == Yes Yes i know all that, but you see i thought just maybe it was a new card out, I know the specs of the 650 by heart but as you will see at least as of a few days ago, ATI doesn't yet have the specs up for it's ATI 750 PCI-E card, so knowing how slow they are to do things like that it wasn't out of the relm or wishful thinking for me to believe that it was a new version

 

[cromwell]

First of all, thanks to the three of you for taking the time and effort to help with this problem. I’ve been on vacation so I apologize for the late reply.

Unfortunately, caveman-jims single sentence reply seems to sum it up, for me at least. It’s an either/or situation every time. I was never able to get a dual tuner option regardless of what method I used. Believe me I tried all suggestions. It was always either/or. Also, my son works for the local cable company and he assured me, yes there are local HD channels. and yes I had enough signal power to get them.

Putting together the ideas Da1745 and paulgo showed me how to make it work. First, I split the cable to plug into both the analog and digital coax connectors on the TV Tuner. I re-ran Vista Media Center setup and manually chose the analog tuner and the scan picked up the analog channels. I then installed Catalyst Media Center along with the v1.0.4310 update and manually chose the digital tuner to scan for the digital channels. It works!!! If I want to watch cable shows, it’s VMC analog. If I want to watch network shows, it’s CMC digital. I also get the digital radio stations my cable company offers. Sweet!!!

For dedicated TV watchers and/or recorders this may not be your best option. I mainly use TV to watch sports such as golf, football, etc, many of which are broadcast on the major networks in HD. If it is cable channels such as ESPN, I’m going to be watching analog.

 

[cromwell]

I forgot to say, I live kinda far from a large city, so it's either cable or an antenna the size of a cell tower with a flashing light on top. Cable One still broadcasts everything in analog except for the locals or if you rent their box. If and when they switch to all digital broadcast there may be a different solution. Of course I could pay them more money and rent their boxes for digital but that just rubs the wrong way. I would probably buy a digital converter if available, but renting one is paying money for nothing and goes against my principles. Besides that how many TV's have you got? Too much money, not enough product,

 

[DA1745]

Unfortunately, caveman-jims single sentence reply seems to sum it up, for me at least. It’s an either/or situation every time. I was never able to get a dual tuner option regardless of what method I used. Believe me I tried all suggestions. It was always either/or. Also, my son works for the local cable company and he assured me, yes there are local HD channels. and yes I had enough signal power to get them.
Right, it's only able to ACCESS and use one tuner at a time (that's the "either/ or") you can EITHER watch / record NTSC -=OR=- ATSC/Clear QAM at once with one of these cards, that's what Caveman-Jim is saying. HE is not saying that Windows Media Center (Vista W/ TV Media Pack) or Windows 7 won't detect both tuners at installation. I verified this last weekend; or be able to choose between and switch between them. If you are watching say analog ch 3 and you want to then change the channel to ch602.1 it will do that just fine.

SO again, I know you are frustrated but since you've never gotten It to detect the Digital Clear QAM Tuner I would question your source for the Vista TV Media Pack, and whether it installed correctly, and whether you downloaded and applied the few updates from Microsoft for it?
First I would check you version in the VMC settings. You can post it and i'll boot my VMC up later check what version it should have.
SECOND, Only plug in the cable (NO SPLITTER) to the Digital side of the card. Then re-scan for VMC to find the Digital Tuner.
Lastly, I get that your son works for the cable co. But my cable co is Charter and what the people get about 10 miles away from me for Clear QAM is NOT the same as what I get. So that's why I suggested that you simply use an HDTV you might have or borrow a small HDTV with a built in Clear QAM tuner and scan to see what you get. ALSO did you check the link for SiliconDust and see what Clear QAM channels they list you should be getting? It's not spot on accurate but it will give you a general idea. Here's WHY you should do that...

Because Catalyst Media Center is not able to detect anywhere near the full amount of Clear Qam Channels (it just isn't). I've had to rescan many times as my cable compnay frequently re numbers the Clear QAM channel line up in my area. So i've checked and compared CMC to VMC right at the source (where the cable signal comes into the house with no splits and CMC misses the about 60% of the SD & HD digital TV channels and 100% of the Digital Music channels. At the time I went searching for answers and The Green Button and even on this site I didn't find a single person that when compared to what there HDTV w/ Clear QAM tuner there weren't missing a large portion usually the majority of there Clear QAM channels.
Contrasted to VMC after one (2) way splitter, and (2) four way splitters is still able to pull in 100% of the available Clear QAM TV Digital & Audio Digital channels. Verified by my HDTV.

Putting together the ideas Da1745 and paulgo showed me how to make it work. First, I split the cable to plug into both the analog and digital coax connectors on the TV Tuner. I re-ran Vista Media Center setup and manually chose the analog tuner and the scan picked up the analog channels. I then installed Catalyst Media Center along with the v1.0.4310 update and manually chose the digital tuner to scan for the digital channels. It works!!! If I want to watch cable shows, it’s VMC analog. If I want to watch network shows, it’s CMC digital. I also get the digital radio stations my cable company offers. Sweet!!! The other benefit to setting it up correctly in VMC is that you could have just the one program running or set to record and depending on whether you selected Digital (SD or HD - BDA Tuner) or an Analog channel VMC is smart enought to know which tuner is busy when and will not allow you to configure it incorrectly (overlap).

For dedicated TV watchers and/or recorders this may not be your best option. I mainly use TV to watch sports such as golf, football, etc, many of which are broadcast on the major networks in HD. If it is cable channels such as ESPN, I’m going to be watching analog.

I forgot to say, I live kinda far from a large city, so it's either cable or an antenna the size of a cell tower with a flashing light on top. Cable One still broadcasts everything in analog except for the locals or if you rent their box. If and when they switch to all digital broadcast there may be a different solution. Of course I could pay them more money and rent their boxes for digital but that just rubs the wrong way. I would probably buy a digital converter if available, but renting one is paying money for nothing and goes against my principles. Besides that how many TV's have you got? Too much money, not enough product,

Yeah, since the digital switch over we are down to three Networks out of four and one PBS (plus the sub-channels). We live just at the outer edge of cable so it's either that or Satellite, but cable bundled works best for us. I get all the movie channels plus the box (for the time being for $34.99) so since we wanted the extra HD channels (not offered in Clear QAM) we went that way. I also like the new HD boxes we got, the analog Coaxial F-connector TV cable shows a really great picture that I wire into my TV Tuners and record some great premium content. The old HD boxes used to crop and down sample the HD pictures out that analog port so i've pretty happy.

 

[cromwell]

DA1745: I do believe we are comparing apples and oranges. You have the 650 PCIe and I have the 650 PCI. Vista Media Center will NOT recognize the PCI card as both analog and digital at the same time, and I don’t mean working at the same time, I mean scanning for appropriate channels. It’s either/or, but never both. I have tried this on two different computers and it just will not do it. If I plug into the analog side the card is recognized as single tuner analog, if I plug into the digital side it’s recognized as single tuner digital, and if I split it into both connections it’s still recognized as single tuner digital. Not once has the card been recognized as both by VMC. I’ve tried this on two different computers with both newly formatted and older installations of Vista Ultimate.

You also mention my TV Pack reliability. Numbers on the download are KB953272 showing 43.1 MB on disk in the Properties. Downloaded from Digiex and scanned for viruses. I also have Play Ready and KB977864 installed. The other two files said to be necessary, KB950754 and 951685, are flagged as not applicable to my system. That could be a problem, I don’t know. It did drop a new icon in the taskbar tray and it works.

It’s all a moot point anyway as I finally figured out (my bad) what paulgo was saying about CMC v1.0.4310 doing both analog and digital signals, just not at the same time. Contrary to VMC, it does recognize the hybrid features of the card. When you click the TV application, it opens in small screen with menus on the left. The top one is Video Input. Open this and you can choose which cable signal you want to watch, either analog or digital and it will then scan and find the appropriate channels. And yes, I do get ALL the available clear QAM channels CableOne offers. (I do have an HDTV, just no converter box) While your problems with CMC have been well documented on this forum, it’s actually giving me a better picture than VMC with none of the headaches you’ve described. I’m probably going to reformat to get rid of the TV Pack because it’s been a complete fail for me. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions and help.

 

[DA1745]

DA1745: I do believe we are comparing apples and oranges. You have the 650 PCIe and I have the 650 PCI. Vista Media Center will NOT recognize the PCI card as both analog and digital at the same time, and I don’t mean working at the same time, I mean scanning for appropriate channels. It’s either/or, but never both. I have tried this on two different computers and it just will not do it. If I plug into the analog side the card is recognized as single tuner analog, if I plug into the digital side it’s recognized as single tuner digital, and if I split it into both connections it’s still recognized as single tuner digital. Not once has the card been recognized as both by VMC. I’ve tried this on two different computers with both newly formatted and older installations of Vista Ultimate.

You also mention my TV Pack reliability. Numbers on the download are KB953272 showing 43.1 MB on disk in the Properties. Downloaded from Digiex and scanned for viruses. I also have Play Ready and KB977864 installed. The other two files said to be necessary, KB950754 and 951685, are flagged as not applicable to my system. That could be a problem, I don’t know. It did drop a new icon in the taskbar tray and it works.

It’s all a moot point anyway as I finally figured out (my bad) what paulgo was saying about CMC v1.0.4310 doing both analog and digital signals, just not at the same time. Contrary to VMC, it does recognize the hybrid features of the card. When you click the TV application, it opens in small screen with menus on the left. The top one is Video Input. Open this and you can choose which cable signal you want to watch, either analog or digital and it will then scan and find the appropriate channels. And yes, I do get ALL the available clear QAM channels CableOne offers. (I do have an HDTV, just no converter box) While your problems with CMC have been well documented on this forum, it’s actually giving me a better picture than VMC with none of the headaches you’ve described. I’m probably going to reformat to get rid of the TV Pack because it’s been a complete fail for me. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions and help.

No, I have both. I Currently have (2) TV Wonder 650 PCI-Express (Combo) 1X cards (running, right now couple spares), (1)-USB TV Wonder 650 (Combo) -==AND==- as I said I just bought (2) DIAMOND TV Wonder 650 PCI (OLD 33mhz Bus cards) (called incorrectly "Dual Tuners" they are Hybrids).
To clear it up further, THIS ONE:
http://www.diamondmm.com/TVW650PCI.php

So YES we are talking about and comparing oranges to oranges the exact same card. I tested first (1) TV Wonder 650 PCI for a week. It detects BOTH the Digital tuner -==AND==- the Analog tuner in BOTH Vista (with TV media Pack and Windows 7) and switches freely between the two tuners as I go up the channel scale.
So there is something wrong in your set up.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I did the single tuner testing with W7. By the time i tested it in the Vista Partition I was already at the dual (PCI) cards installed. I'll go back and double check that there isnt' something preventing it from detectig both in Vista MC w/TV Pack and not W7. I was testing out a MCE backup program from Ian Dixon
http://mobilewares.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!78533A1A2E078194!213.entry
and it farked up my VMC setup so i'll try and save off and re-install the clone and retest.
1000 Apologies if it works under W7 but not Vista MC Tv Pack.

 

[randytylor]

It is little disappointed with the vista. HDTV provides better (Vista Media Center coupled with). FM reception is terrible. Exquisite software, limited and full screen display is HDTV. I found that unacceptable so i instead to use Vista Media Center which works selected. Exquisite software, limited and full screen display is HDTV. I found that unacceptable than Vista media center.

 

[DA1745]

So i'm back for my rounds. Yes, as I had posted a while back an Edit to this. you were correct for whatever reason VISTA doesn't see both of the tuners in the PCI - TV Wonder 650 card. Windows 7 does. I hadn't removed the Second PCI card when I tested it under Vista ulimate. So indeed it saw both types of tuners ( but that was only bc i had two of them installed). It never dawned on me that this would be any different than W7 where I had first started with the Single Diamond TV Wonder 650 PCI card, and after testing and finding it working correctly, I added the second TV Wonder 650 PCI. I SHOULD have done the same process, first one card then the second & I would have noticed the difference. By having the second card in effectively it WAS the same as W7 with two cards... but with just one card it's a completely different thing in VISTA. ( This is really too bad that again it's one of those little known things that really makes using this software/hardware a PITA sometimes.

I went back (PITA to keep reinstalling these OS) on test beds.
I also researched it on line to see if there was something a-miss or if a work around existed. Why this hasn't been corrected but seems like it's a dead and forgotten issue that they have corrected in W7
http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/vistamctvpack2008.html
(Vista - Tv media Pack) - "Hybrid tuners cannot be configured for both analog and digital"

So the work arounds? not really any that don't involve cost to most. Like 1)get a second card TV Wonder 650 - PCI or 2)get a dual NTSC, ATSC card of sometype or other like TV Wonder 650 - PCI-E, 3)get Windows 7.

Sorry for the bad info and the argument. I try to follow good methods of testing but when I have to do it in three different OS now I sometimes make big mistakes.