On 10-11-14 04:29 PM, Adam Thompson wrote:

Sadly, HD Cable and Digital Tuner cards do not work together in Canada. In the US, there's a federal standard called CableCard that neither Industry Canada nor the CRTC was interested in, so each cableco here is free do do whatever they want. And they pretty much all encrypt 100% of their digital traffic.

The worst possible situation... Although the consumer pays for a product, they can't use it.

The best you can do here is get a Shaw HD terminal, a FrameGrabber that supports Component Video input, and an IR blaster.

In a sense that kind of defeats the purpose of going digital. If the signal has to be converted to analogue at some point it's really not the same. Granted the quality is going to be better than the analogue cable (which presumably would work fine) it still won't be completely digital.

MTS TV users have the same issue, BTW.

The bastards!!! ;-)

In 2012, our TV stations must switch to HD OTA broadcasts, at that point you'll be able to use an ATSC tuner card.

That will just be for the OTA stuff. I've been trying to follow what was happening. That and Superstore is selling the OTA digital boxes in the bargain bins. I've heard a few things which may or may not be good for Winnipeg. Namely the VHF spectrum (longer range) is no longer in use but the UHF spectrum (shorter range - no skip) is now used by OTA TV. I'd have to wonder if anybody has tried to get any current OTA TV from the States here in town. The thing is even a weak signal should still mean the station is visible.

After all this I'd think the cable companies, CRTC, and the government were trying to kill off certain components of the computer hardware industry. It's not as if the cable companies aren't getting paid for their products. Also it's not as if they can't control what an individual house can access either. All they are doing is telling the consumer where to spend their money. It just sounds mean spirited to me.

Maybe I should start looking at the FTA stuff a little earlier than expected...

-Adam

Later Mike

-----Original Message----- From: Mike Pfaifferhigh.res.mike@gmail.com Sender: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 15:53:31 To: MUUG Roundtableroundtable@muug.mb.ca Reply-To: Continuation of Round Table discussionroundtable@muug.mb.ca Subject: [RndTbl] TV tuner cards

Does anybody have any experience with digital TV tuner cards? I'm thinking of picking one up in the next couple of months and I'm curious about which ones work well with Shaw. It would be nice to have access to the HD channels on the computer since none of the TVs in the house (or the one digital box we have) is HD compatible.

I think I would need a basic set of definitions and vocabulary to work from before I start. Incidentally I plan to follow this up with a call to Shaw some time in the next couple of months. Consulting the folks here seems to be the logical first step (even before Google) because a few have actually set these things up.

Some time in the future I might consider some FTA stuff. The one person I know who uses it all the time keeps putting off my request to actually see it in action. Sure the reviews from the satellite buffs are "It's great" but that really doesn't say anything.

Later Mike _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable

On 10-11-15 06:58 AM, Gerald Brandt wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Mike Pfaiffer"high.res.mike@gmail.com To: "MUUG Roundtable"roundtable@muug.mb.ca Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 3:53:31 PM Subject: [RndTbl] TV tuner cards Does anybody have any experience with digital TV tuner cards? I'm thinking of picking one up in the next couple of months and I'm curious about which ones work well with Shaw. It would be nice to have access to the HD channels on the computer since none of the TVs in the house (or the one digital box we have) is HD compatible.

I think I would need a basic set of definitions and vocabulary to work from before I start. Incidentally I plan to follow this up with a call to Shaw some time in the next couple of months. Consulting the folks here seems to be the logical first step (even before Google) because a few have actually set these things up.

Some time in the future I might consider some FTA stuff. The one person I know who uses it all the time keeps putting off my request to actually see it in action. Sure the reviews from the satellite buffs are "It's great" but that really doesn't say anything.

Later Mike

I have a mythtv system, and I use the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It takes component in and spits out H.264 720P out USB. Since I'm using Shaw, I have one of their Motorola boxes, and I can change channels via firewire.

I had initially thought the TV tuner card would take input from the cable itself and choose the channel from there. The hope was it would be like a cable box without the box. We already have a standard resolution box. I was hoping I could put some HD content on my Linux machine without actually having to pick up an HD box.

As a stereotypical Winnipegger I may be cheap, but I'm not trying to get something for nothing. We are already paying for digital content. I gather the base HD package is the same as the base non-HD package except the box can't decrypt it. Demanding specific hardware to decrypt a signal we already pay for (and decrypt on ONE box) seems unreasonable to me. Especially given their attitude to their analogue signal.

Gerald

Later Mike

I had a mythv with a Hauppauge card and shaw for a few years. There is an add-on for mythtv that supposedly lets you control the Shaw box via firewire _AND_ it delivers the HD video over the same link but unfortunately the firewire was unstable. It would sometimes change channels then lock up or not send video etc. Could have been the firewire drivers, could have been the Shaw box, hard to say but I never ended up using it.

Otherwise the mythtv setup worked flawlessly on the regular non-digital cable channels and even though I no longer have Shaw I still use it to serve up content on my PS3.

Unless something has changed recently, you can not get digital or HD content from Shaw unless you buy their tuner. If the serial number of the tuner is not in their database, you can't use it. The CRTC should change this rule but the feds don't seem to be big on allowing competition in any telecommunication space.

Speaking of competition, I recently signed up for Netflix on my PS3 and after watching about 10 hours or so of programming, the service has been flawless. I'm very impressed.

Unfortunately the catalog is quite limited but if they happen to have some shows you are interested in then it's a good deal for $8/mo. It is the closest replacement for cable I've seen yet.

Regards,