Hauppauge DCR-2650 Dual CableCard Tuner - Owner's Thread

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
soccerdad

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Hauppauge DCR-2650 Dual CableCard Tuner - Owner's Thread

#1

Post by soccerdad » Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:57 am

I see lots of posts on the Ceton cards and see a prime user's thread but not much on the DCR-2650.

Mine works pretty well. I still have some random "tuner not found" or searching for tuners though which makes it really low on the WAF. I ended up rolling back to an older beta driver and it helps but is not perfect. I am now trying S1 standby to see if it is an improvement over S3. My problems only happens coming out of standby. I have to use a Cisco STA1520 TA on TWC. It seems to work fine. It is just 7MC looses the DCR sometimes. I just wanted to see if other owners are having the same issues.

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#2

Post by jebbbz » Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:30 am

I have one but after a bit of a hassle getting the card set up mine has been working fine. I have not, however, installed the Cisco TA my cableco gave me along with the cable card they issued me so I don't know if that would cause problems. I also have an old ATi external installed and the only problems I have are with that tuner - occasional subscription required warnings that ruin recordings but which with live TV only require me to change channels away and then back to clear the message.

Sorry I can't help with your problem but your message was looking lonely.

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#3

Post by soccerdad » Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:50 am

It seems to be much more stable lately. It seems that most of my issues calmed down when I went to S1 standby. It must be some kind of motherboard/bios/usb power up timing issue.

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#4

Post by jeepguy04 » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:22 pm

I got this tuner for christmas and got around to getting a cable card about a week or so ago. I did a fresh install on windows 7 before putting the tuner in since I had playready issues before (seemed to have started after I changed a video card out which is weird since I didn't think that was supposed to affect it).

At first media center would come back with just my clear qam tuner and say other tuners detected but they had no signal. Clearly the cable light on the DCR was lit and seemed to have a good connection. I scanned multiple times with the same result. I tried again the next morning and it found it and let me set it up.

Called Comcast and the guy was having computer problems, I thought ohh no this is going to be an ordeal. But he was able to set it all up in less than 10 minutes and everything has been working fine since. Haven't missed any recordings. I do leave my rig on 24/7 and it doesn't sleep so that may help.

The only problem I am seeing is that I get a "copy prohibited" screen pop up for 1 second occasionally. This happens on both live and recorded tv. But it only happens on the machine itself and not the extender. The extender will sometimes have a glitch in the video for a second or two. I'm wondering if the two correspond to one another. I may try noting the spot in a show where I get the copy prohibited screen and then watch it on the extender and see if there is a video glitch in the same spot.

Windows is totally updated and although this isn't a serious problem it is very annoying. Anybody else seen behavior?

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#5

Post by Theosh » Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:17 pm

So, I've been in the ring with my DCR-2650 for 3 days now. Its been a fight. I've been using my Media Center now for almost 3 years. I have to say I love it. It does everything, streams my movies, gets HULU, Netflix, weather, bla bla bla... But, I decided to add digital cable to it. I've been running 4 tuners getting QAM. 3 days now I can't seen to get past this "activation Required" message that comes up everyone I go to a digital channel. I'm begging someone, please wake me from this nightmare and tell me what I'm missing. :cry:

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#6

Post by Theosh » Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:23 pm

The cable service provider is Cox and the card has been activated and I also have a tuning adapter that is also activated.
The "Activation Required" states "Yur digital cable device or windows must be activated before you can view this content" the card is activated. Here is a strange kicker, if I leave he channel up that says "activation Requred" it will sometimes show the channel..and then it goes back to the Activation Required screen.
Do I sound crazy? I'm raring t feel that way.

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Scallica

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#7

Post by Scallica » Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:57 pm

Did you run (and pass) the Digital Cable Advisor in the Extras Gallery?
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richard1980

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#8

Post by richard1980 » Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:40 pm

If you haven't ran the DCA already, you'll need to do that....but you have to do it with WMC in windowed mode or you won't see the UAC prompt.

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#9

Post by Theosh » Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:58 am

Yeah, I ran it and passed...

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#10

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:59 am

You may have one of those motherboards that has a table in BIOS that makes the Digital Cable Advisor think that you have already entered the activation key for Digital Cable to work. I had that exact problem, and I had to go get that key from a different Windows 7 PC.

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#11

Post by richard1980 » Wed Feb 22, 2012 3:15 am

An OCUR BIOS will make you type in the product key before you can pass the DCA.

I think this is just an entitlement issue. I don't have the DCR-2650, so I'm not sure how to check entitlements. On the InfiniTV there is a way you can check entitlement with the diagnostic tool...you just type in a channel number and the tool tells you if you are entitled to receive that channel. If there is a way to do that with the DCR-2650, try it. If it comes back with a message that you are not entitled to receive the channel, you'll need to contact Cox and have them re-authorize your CableCARD. You can deal with your local office or you can call their main line at 888-556-1193.

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#12

Post by Theosh » Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:22 am

barnabas1969 wrote:You may have one of those motherboards that has a table in BIOS that makes the Digital Cable Advisor think that you have already entered the activation key for Digital Cable to work. I had that exact problem, and I had to go get that key from a different Windows 7 PC.
I read about that in another thread. I haven't tried that yet. Is it just another windows 7 key? Or is it a special key of some sort? Did you do it through the regedit?

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#13

Post by mcewinter » Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:31 pm


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Scallica

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#14

Post by Scallica » Wed Feb 22, 2012 3:45 pm

You can also download the OCUR BIOS check utility here:

http://www.dougknox.com/vista/ocurbioschk.htm
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#15

Post by Theosh » Wed Feb 22, 2012 4:15 pm

Thanks for the help, guys! I'll give it a shot when I get home today. If this works, drink are on me! :D

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#16

Post by richard1980 » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:10 am

I have to correct myself. The product key would be typed in when you go to configure the TV signal, not before you can pass the DCA. In any case, he should not have made it this far if a product key was required.

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#17

Post by Theosh » Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:48 am

No go guys. :cry: I had to add the csript code, because it says my liscense status is unlicensed. When I try to activate it I keep getting the same result, "activation Failed".

When I activate the cable card I am unable to change or enter the liscense number in MC. It's graded out and auto populated with the same number each time. I entered a new windows product key, no change. Any ideas at his point. My windows 7 64 bit media center is doomed to a life of clear QAM??? No............

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#18

Post by Scallica » Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:14 am

The Digital Cable Activation key is the same for every system once you pass the advisor. The key is located in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Content Security\OCURPID. The default value is MVV4F-R2T29-WBHYJ-BBFQY-J64XX. Sometimes, even with this valid key, the activation will fail during the tuner setup. In that case, you must run the cscript commands in the link provided by mcewinter. I would suggest entering the above key into your registry and trying the commands again.

If you are unsuccessful, provide us with screenshots or a log of your DOS window.
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#19

Post by Theosh » Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:09 pm

That's the key number I keep seeing when I try to activate the cable card. I'll do the regedit this afternoon. Ill post screenshots if I am unsuccessful with the csript. Thanks.

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#20

Post by barnabas1969 » Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:35 pm

I don't remember all the specific details, but when I was first setting up my machine, I definitely did NOT get prompted to enter the key when I ran the advisor. It simply would finish and tell me that it passed. From everything I read, it was due to my OCUR BIOS, as Richard puts it. I pulled my hair out for several days until I finally got an activation key from a friend's Windows 7 machine and entered it into the registry. Basically, I just ran the Digital Cable Advisor on his machine, got the key from his registry, and entered it into my registry. The keys that were available on the web at the time were all invalid.

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