Mixing OTA and CableCARD

[jziggity]

So, TWC and NBC in our area still can't get along, and we are rapidly approaching the one-month mark, not to mention the upcoming fall season of new shows. I really hoped I wouldn't have to do this, but it looks like I need to explore the option of adding an OTA tuner to my current setup of WMC7 and an internal InfiniTV 4 PCI card. Cablecard (once the quirks were worked out) has been pretty solid for me. I know other people out there mix OTA and cablecard, so I would like to know about some of the finer details on getting this to work.

As of right now, I would only need the OTA tuner for one channel (NBC). I know you can adjust settings inside of WMC under "Edit Channel" -> "Edit Sources" to tell WMC which tuner to use for a particular channel. What if I want the OTA tuner to ONLY be used for the one channel? Do I have to manually tell all of the other cable channels to NOT use the OTA tuner? I hope not. I have a feeling there is a simple answer here...?

Also, due to limited motherboard space, I am thinking I would need to go with an external USB OTA tuner. Are there any decent USB ones out there yet? Pardon my laziness, as I haven't really started researching this end of it yet. If someone has a setup that works great for them in this mixed type of environment, I'd love to hear how you have to set it up and what hardware you are using. Thanks!

[Shackleford]

Its really simple set up. Scan for channels and once found you can simply delete any found channels you don't want to add. The ones you do keep will then be added to you guide where you can merge them with current channels or leave them as a separate channel.

I use a HDHR3-US it is 2 tuners and connects via Ethernet. http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHom ... ords=hdhr3

[staknhalo]

+1 to it being easy as described above, I've ran OTA + QAM together for many years when I lived in Ft Lauderdale.

[jaimeknapp]

I just added an outdoor antenna and Hauppauge 2250 to my system alongside the Ceton InfiniTV PCI and it was quite straightforward. As you say, the channels settings are the only real "issue" you will run across. WMC will rescan the Ceton as well and any channel changes you have made, including de-selecting those you are not subscribed to, or have no interest in will be lost. I had a mixed bag where some local channels from both the OTA and Ceton tuners were grouped together under a single channel number's listing. It took me a while to realize that.

[barnabas1969]

NBC? It's CBS that TWC is having a dispute with. (Well, CBS and every CBS-owned network like Showtime)

[blueiedgod]

Have been running Ceton InfiniTV4 AND 2x HomeRun Duals (4 total tuners) with antennas (2 antennas pointing in different directions, each set of tuners is assigned to certain stations that have better reception from a particular antenna), and never had a single issue. The OTA feed seems to be of higher quality than what you get it over ClearQAM from the provider.

[staknhalo]

Yeah they usually always are.

[foxwood]

The OTA feed seems to be of higher quality than what you get it over ClearQAM from the provider.

The "sender" of the OTA channels doesn't benefit from compressing the heck out of the signal. Unfortunately, some Cable providers would rather pump out an extra 100 channels of utter crap than give you a decent picture on the stuff that you actually want to watch!

(I'm pretty sure that I could delete all but 20 channels on my lineup, and never miss anything interesting!)

[jziggity]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I totally forgot that SD has a regular OTA tuner option - duh. I would definitely go that route, but for whatever reason I see myself ordering, receiving, and installing said tuner, only to have the dispute resolved 2 days later. I am going to continue to hold out, but it's good to know that the option is there if needed, and it sounds pretty straightforward too.

In our area, the fight is between TWC and the Journal Broadcast Group, which is the local provider for NBC in our area, and Green Bay too, plus a couple of other channels. CBS is still on the air by us. I know there are different channels in different markets that are affected.

I am seriously tempted to go straight-up OTA, but there are some cable shows that I like, some that the Mrs. likes, and some that my son likes. *sigh*

[Cab121]

I can vouch for this.
I am a TWC Dallas customer. When the debacle started my SAF was starting to drop rapidly lol. I added a SiliconDust HR3 OTA tuner and stuck a antenna in the attic. Setup was 30 minutes and I was very lazy about it. Worked like a charm. Just added the tuners to WMC along with the other Ceton tuners and all was working. SAF back up and earned some bonus for spending very little $$.

I would also note the following bonus to this. Local via cable is compressed so the quality is less. You would be amazed at the difference a non compressed HD signal makes for a great picture. Seems the free signal is better all around IMHO.

As I understand SiliconDust is on the verge of putting a new product line on the market. Quad tuner version and a new OTA 2 tuner version that is all DLNA . Some other goodness but nothing official.

[adam1991]

This works fine as everyone described, but be careful about doing it with cable clear QAM. It's a cheap way to get an extra two tuners for those channels you can get straight out of the wall without a cableCARD, but.

But. The damn cable company is likely to move those channels around. At that point, all you can do is rescan and resetup all your hard work.

It's not worth it.

With OTA, the frequencies don't change--so this isn't an issue.