HD 650 pci QAM problems

[mark534]

Help please ...I purchased a HD 650 ( pci model ) back in march of this year ,and it works great for analog channels, but I have never been able to find not even one clear-QAM signal. After some reasearch I see some info that the pci model of the HD 650 is NOT clear QAM supported. Can someone give me the real answer to this question !!

thanks.......mark

 

[caveman-jim]

Welcome to the forums, Mark!

What application are you using to watch TV? Vista MCE, Catalyst Media Center etc. If you are using CMC what version number is reported?

I have an ATI Theater 650 PCI as well, and in CMC I could get it to detect several channels from my cable service, but wouldn't ever display a picture (I think signal was too weak). I'm now using Vista Media Center, which doesn't support QAM either unless you have specific drivers for specific manufacturers TV tuners (KWorld I think has some).

 

[mark534]

Welcome to the forums, Mark!

What application are you using to watch TV? Vista MCE, Catalyst Media Center etc. If you are using CMC what version number is reported?

I have an ATI Theater 650 PCI as well, and in CMC I could get it to detect several channels from my cable service, but wouldn't ever display a picture (I think signal was too weak). I'm now using Vista Media Center, which doesn't support QAM either unless you have specific drivers for specific manufacturers TV tuners (KWorld I think has some).

Thanks for the welcome!...I'm running a HP athlon 64 system with vista home premium. The catalyst program is version 1.0.3202. I've tried to scan QAM channels in media center and catalyst both with no luck... now my tuner card does not say THEATER on it anywhere..just TV WONDER HD 650.. do we have the same tuner..?

 

[Agustus]

Help please ...I purchased a HD 650 ( pci model ) back in march of this year ,and it works great for analog channels, but I have never been able to find not even one clear-QAM signal. After some reasearch I see some info that the pci model of the HD 650 is NOT clear QAM supported. Can someone give me the real answer to this question !!

thanks.......mark

If you look at the ATI Product Matrix (NTSC/ATSC) Here you will see that the 650 PCI is included as a Clear-QAM capable tuner with the following stipulations:

Unencrypted Clear-QAM Digital Cable TV is supported with Catalyst Media Center build 1.0.3202 and higher in Windows Vista® for PCs. Unencrypted Clear-QAM Digital Cable TV is supported with Mac OS X 10.4.10+ and higher using ATI tvPORTAL™ for MACs..

There is also confirmation that the 650 PCI Hybrid tuner card does indeed work in QAM mode with other programs here

 

[mikiem]

The 650 will do QAM using the drivers available since about 11/07 I think... there’s an earlier post where I tried it with different software, but at the time didn’t find anything that worked in Vista & with CC, so haven’t done much with QAM - especially since Brighthouse cable only has a handful of clear QAM channels.

The raw signal going into the digital tuner has to be stronger than what works for analog & include the digital frequencies. To check signal strength run the cable from where it enters your home - before any splitters - to the digital tuner... if the signal’s really poor you might have to insert an amp like I did, but, that at least got me enough of a signal to say thing’s were working. You can also try an ATSC antennae, which would tell you the card itself, & digital tuning are OK. You might want to Google a bit first though, making sure your cable provider has any clear QAM channels you’d want to watch - I get fewer than with ATSC.

If worse comes to worse, there are a *Bunch* of potential problems receiving DVB, whether HD or SD, ATSC or Sat or QAM... 64-bit Windows may not work. Your other hardware can have an effect, stuff like your graphics card & even the motherboard. The installed Direct Show & DX software/filters have an effect [Cyberlink (makes CMC) loaths the Cinemaster audio Vista favors if you have it installed]. And the 650 can get stuck [don’t know of a better way to put it] with the digital tuner (hooked to a raw cable feed) inactive. When that’s happened to me in XP Pro 32 SP3, going into the signal mapping section of GB-PVR’s configuration utility got it back. Not sure if it occurs or how to get it back in Vista...

Hardware acceleration from an ATI graphics card can conflict with the 650, as can the Avivo filters for the graphics card - CCC 8.3 I think & the newest 8.7 are particularly bad in that respect, in my experience anyway. And if you have problems with the hardware &/or software necessary to display the stream, it can also break the rest of the software so the 650 can’t work period, and it will show no channels or signals present. You can also try to play an HD mpg2 file, to make sure your default mpg2 & ac3 decoders can handle it without conflicts, & maybe check GPU usage at the same time (GPU-Z). If everything says go so far, then I’d try assembling a graph in graphedit, just to see if everything connects (you won’t be able to play any QAM there). If all that works out OK, IMHO no reason the latest CMC shouldn’t do QAM, & I’d look for conflicting software preventing CMC from doing it’s thing.

 

[DA1745]

QAM with a TV Wonder 650 Combo PCI-E.
Before the (Vista TV Media Pack 2008), I was TRYING to use CMC to pull in QAM SD & HD channels in Vista. It was a very disappointing experience. Even when taking the Cable feed directly from the wall (it's very own feed with no splitters etc.) I was only able to get (1) HD channel and it had a cartoon effect to it (not watchable), and I was missing a number of SD Digital channels and either most or all of the Digital music channels (depending on the results of the scan...never got the same results twice). Originally I thought that the signal wasn't strong enough, but after I found a copy of the TV Pack on a Bittorrent site and installed it, I found out just how bad CMC's QAM tuning ability really was and how good the ATI TV Wonder 650 tuner could be.

With the Cable RG-6 Spilit first twice, then four times, then five times with one off that last split going into the TV wonder 650; Under Vista I get all the QAM256 HD channels available locally & AFAIK all the QAM64 SD digital channels (I say that b/c I live on the cusp of two different markets so I actually get my local and the local SD's from the next state over (which is pretty cool) but since the cable co's don't publish the data I have to go by what we used to be able to pull in long ago with Analog OTA NTSC antennas...but anyway its all that we get with a regular Philip's HDTV QAM antenna. Plus with Vista MC I pull in two that the TV doesn't...and all the digital music channels.

I bought the cards when they were on sale & at a BF sale, but otherwise I'd be really pissed had I paid full price and had the lack of service/performance that comes with CMC...Even for what I paid, before the TV Pack was leaked out, I was Pissed that ATI taughted QAM support in Vista with CMC, I've said elsewhere it's as close to "a lie" as you can come.

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If anyone can answer this i'd appreciate it. I read as far as I can in the specs of BeyondTV 4.9 & Sage TV; it "appears" that the TV Wonder 650 Combo is supported in both XP & Vista offering QAM in addition to NTSC, & OTA ATSC....Is that correct?

If not could you explain where each will work? QAM is important to me.
Also how do they license them and install the license? Is it locked down tight for each installtion, I'm wondering about switching it between two computers periodically i don't quite have what system will use what OS / tuner programs down yet.