[ericent]

I have a VIXS Pure TV Capture ATSC-NTCS TV Tuner w/ PVR & FM Tuner in my desktop and the OS is Vista Ultimate 32-bit. Here is my set-up (hands off to the guy that can figure this out). In room one is my satellite receiver. A coaxial (RF) cable (Not DTV) runs from the receiver through the ceiling to my room about 25' away and connects to the TV/Cable/Ant input on the tuner. Now before I move on to windows media center, let me explain how the satellite receiver works. We have dish network and with this receiver it can be used by more than one system using some sort of sharing setup. For this second connection (The one plugged up to my computer) to work, it needs a specific channel to be transmitted on. And it has to be set on channels 73-125 if using a cable. Ours is set on channel 73. Now with a television set you would just turn to channel 73 and you're all set. However, when I try to use Windows Media Center to detect the TV signal, I can't figure out how to set it to channel 73 which is the only way to detect the signal. I probably sound like a complete idiot and the answer is probably very simple, but I have been at it for hours and I am completly lost. I would really appreciate some advice.



P.S. If the receiver is in another room how do connect my remote to the receiver?

[mjd420nova]

The tuner for the PC card has to be the one set to the right channel. Check the control panel for the receiver card to see how to set this to the proper channel. Be sure the output of the cable is proper by connecting to a tv set to that channel. Have the output present when attempting to tune the card as some cards can't lock on to a signal unless it's present. Tha is if you set the tuner card to the channel and then connect the coax, it might not see the signal properly.

[ericent]

The specific model is the ViXS PureTV-U 48B0 NTSC/ATSC Combo video capture device. All I can do is either run diag tests with every program I have, all of them saying it is running properly. However, they all say their is no TV signal. Media Center is the only sign that the tuner exists, but I have no way of changing the channel. You said to go to control panel and find the device, but I can only find it in device manager and all I can do their is update the driver. Was this thing supposed to come with some sort software? I can't find a way to change the channel and I have looked everywhere for answers, but not even the man's site has info. Is their anything at all I can do?!

[smax013]

ericent said:

I have a VIXS Pure TV Capture ATSC-NTCS TV Tuner w/ PVR & FM Tuner in my desktop and the OS is Vista Ultimate 32-bit. Here is my set-up (hands off to the guy that can figure this out). In room one is my satellite receiver. A coaxial (RF) cable (Not DTV) runs from the receiver through the ceiling to my room about 25' away and connects to the TV/Cable/Ant input on the tuner. Now before I move on to windows media center, let me explain how the satellite receiver works. We have dish network and with this receiver it can be used by more than one system using some sort of sharing setup. For this second connection (The one plugged up to my computer) to work, it needs a specific channel to be transmitted on. And it has to be set on channels 73-125 if using a cable. Ours is set on channel 73. Now with a television set you would just turn to channel 73 and you're all set. However, when I try to use Windows Media Center to detect the TV signal, I can't figure out how to set it to channel 73 which is the only way to detect the signal. I probably sound like a complete idiot and the answer is probably very simple, but I have been at it for hours and I am completly lost. I would really appreciate some advice.





P.S. If the receiver is in another room how do connect my remote to the receiver?

I want to make sure that I under stand...you are using Dish Network satelite, right? No cable...just satelite.



If so, then to my knowledge, there is no way to use the tuner portion of your tuner card. To my knowledge, all satelite signals are encoded digital transmitions (i.e. scrambled) and need the satelite receiver box to un-encode the signal. The only way that I know to get your satelite signal onto your computer is to use a straight video line in (i.e. either a RCA video cable or an S-Video cable...or something more sohpisticated like component video or DVI or HDMI). This will still mean you need to have a satelite "tuner" box there and you will use it, not the tuner card, to change channels. This is similar to using digital cable.

[ericent]

No I'm using a cable. The cable goes from the receiver to my tuner. Or will that not work either?

[smax013]

ericent said:

No I'm using a cable. The cable goes from the receiver to my tuner. Or will that not work either?

I was talking the overall system. You are using a satelite system NOT cable TV, right?



But, it sounds like you are trying to use a coaxial cable from the satelite TV receiver to the tuner card. Is that correct?



Have you tried a RCA or S-Video cable? Most tuner cards that I am aware of tend to also have either an RCA line-in input and/or a S-Video line-in input.

If your satelite box can pump a line out signal through a coaxial cable then it should work assuming you tune the tuner on the tuner card to the correct channel. I was not aware that satelite boxes did that, but if it does then it should work. I know that some digital cable TV boxes do that (i.e. use the coaxial input of the TV), but generally in today's world, it is usually done with a pure line in by way of a RCA cable or S-Video cable.

[ericent]

As I said in my previous post, the only way a TV set could detect the signal is to turn to channel 73. I'm confident that the coaxial cable will work, but Media Center only scans channels 2, 3, and 4. After nova posted and told me to go to control panel and find a way to change the channel that's what I did and I used a diagnostic tool to check the tuner. I viewed the programs trouble shoot guide and it said to specify the channel in the PCDrTvCard.p5i file by modifying the TvChannelToCheck parameter. It said the test would then try to detect the signal in new group of channels. Of course even if I figure out how to do that, I still don't know how to make Media Center detect channel 73. Boy I sure wish I was able to set the programmed channel under 73, then I wouldn't have this problem.

[AlphaW]

I got same problem when I setup HP m9000t desktop; if you are using Vista , try to upgrade the driver from Device Manager

right click " ViXS PureTV-U 48B0" ; then click "Update Drivers" ; after update , reboot ;

the driver version should be 6.100.1.18 or above.

Then try to reconfigure Windows Media Center. this time it said found 2 signals ; one for digital ASTC atenna and one for NTSC cable ( my is comcast unscramble cable signal)

It rock now.

[JohnNC]

I have the same problem with the same tuner card and 64 bit Vista. My ViXS Pure TV-U 48B0 card driver is version 6.1.100.18.


Did you ever get people to understande your problem and get a resolution? My solution was to add an unused analog chanel and label it Satellite. I could watch, but could not couple it with Vista's guide. I would LOVE to get the setup to specify satellite on an analog channel other than 2, 3 or 4 which is all the analog channels Media Center allows.

[smax013]

JohnNC said:

I have the same problem with the same tuner card and 64 bit Vista. My ViXS Pure TV-U 48B0 card driver is version 6.1.100.18.


Did you ever get people to understande your problem and get a resolution? My solution was to add an unused analog chanel and label it Satellite. I could watch, but could not couple it with Vista's guide. I would LOVE to get the setup to specify satellite on an analog channel other than 2, 3 or 4 which is all the analog channels Media Center allows.

After doing a little searching, the problem might lie with the Satellite box. I suspect that it will ONLY send the output over an analog channel (i.e. channel 3). You might try call your Satellite providers technical support and asking them.

It this link tends to suggest that using an IR blaster to have the PC control the satellite box can be problematic: http://thedigitallif...ms/t/1585.aspx. If that does not work, then getting the Vista guide will be impossible.