WMC can't detect OTA channels; get a new Tuner Card?

[DenverOTA]

I have used WMC with an HD HomeRun/ CableCard (Comcast) unit for several years. Other than the occasional reboot of my computer/ HD HR/ router, everything has worked great. I now want to get rid of Comcast TV, and go with over the air TV, but I want to record using WMC. I purchased a used Dell Inspiron 620, win7 64bit to use as a dedicated HTPC. I also bought an HD antenna and an ATI Diamond HD 750 USB tuner card. When I did several channel scans, WMC detected no channels. I then installed the media program (Total Media) that came with the stick. I did a scan and it found all the OTA channels (with high strength). I then went back to WMC and scanned but no channels were found, but I chose “configure my TV signal manually”. It worked; all channels were detected by WMC, guide was downloaded, and I could watch and record. Now the bad part…

A week ago I did a guide download, which was followed by the blue screen of death. I rebooted, and my guide was gone, and only recorded TV and live TV setup icons were present. I tried doing the same “configure my TV signal manually”. Specifically, I choose 1)Antenna, 2)Digital Antenna. I then get a message “you can use 2 tuners, ATI BDA Digital tuner 1 and ATI BDA Digital tuner 2. After clicking ‘next’ to finish, I get the “TV setup has encountered a serious problem” message. I have read several threads on this site and tried many of them:

Turned off WMC thru windows features and removed the eHome folder. (I do this every time before I have attempted a new fix)

Ran Media Center recovery task

Ran Media Center update task

Ran SFC /Scannow (no bad files found)

Deleted the Total Media software (thought this might be interfering with WMC; before deleting it would sometimes show the channels, sometimes say antenna is in use by other program, even when WMC is closed)

Did a restore point to a previous date (June 2014)

Tried using the driver that came with the stick (I had been using the most recent one from ATI).

Got a restore disk from Dell, but haven’t reinstalled windows yet.

I am wondering if ATI HD 750 is just a crappy device and I should buy a different tuner. I would like to hear any suggestions of what the best tuner card is for win 7 and WMC.

Any other troubleshooting suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! Ralph.

[Scallica]

I am wondering if ATI HD 750 is just a crappy device and I should buy a different tuner. I would like to hear any suggestions of what the best tuner card is for win 7 and WMC.

Indeed, forget those ATI junk tuners and just buy an Silicondust HDHR Connect or an HDHR Extend to tune OTA/ATSC. You can probably find a used one on ebay for a decent price.

http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdh ... n-connect/

http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdh ... hdhomerun/

[DenverOTA]

I have the HDHomerun Prime which doesn't receive OTA. I looked at the SD Connect & Extend on Amazon. The extend is $35 more than the connect, but offers HD over WIFI. Here was a good review claiming the HD feature (& noisy fan) of the Extend doesn't work:

"The EXTEND costs an additional 30$ but only really gives you what they're calling on-the-fly h.264 encoding, which is a widely used codec for digital video and audio compression. The main draw here is that it allows you to stream HD content to wireless devices more efficiently, using less bandwidth on your network. Unfortunately, the EXTEND does a poor job of accomplishing this. Under powered hardware, poor response times switching channels, random freezes and frequent digitization plus a tiny little fan whirring away when your utilizing both tuners, really put the nails in the EXTEND's coffin for me"

I have a hard wired extender, but would like to receive HD OTA on other computers/ devices. Any experience with the HDHR Extend (HD over WiFi)?

[cwinfield]

It is unnecessary unless you need DLNA streaming to TVs, Blu-Ray devieces, etc. You can do most everything without that feature. The only difference is if your using a tablet or playstation and use their app, then it will encode it on the fly and use less bandwidth.

[DenverOTA]

Thanks for the advice! I purchased the HD Homerun Connect. I am viewing/ recording OTA channels on my main HTPC and bedroom laptop. In addition to the HDHR actually working with WMC, I was able to put the (hard wired) tuner/ HD antenna in my bedroom where I get much better reception. Time to stop paying the pig (Comcast)!!