Can i view espn, not HD, or AMC, etc. with PCTV HD Card from pinnicale?

Most PC tuner cards and sticks will play unencrypted cable QAM - both analog and digital, including HD. The key, once again, is that the signal must be unencrypted. In most cases you will not need your cable box.

Encrypted cable QAM may be played through your PC with a cable card tuner. You must check with your cable company to see if they will provide a cable card for you - you must purchase the tuner.

Depending upon the tuner you select, they will provide the necessary drivers.

So non-HD ESPN, AMC, etc. is encrypted by Comcast? A box supplied by Comcast between the wall and the tuner will still not allow me to watch on my PC ESPN, AMC, etc?

I don't know.

Formerly, the 'basic' and 'extended-basic' packages (essentially the first 120 channels) were 100% unencrypted analog signals. Most providers have now converted these 'packages' to digital -- some are encrypted - some not.

If you have a '120 channel-ready' TV, run your cable directly to your TV and see is the signals are scrambled - if they are not, your PC tuner should work fine.

The 'box' is essentially a tuner - in most cases with the right TV (or tuner) you do not need it. The 'scrambling' actually takes place at the cable office or at the 'pole.'

A Comcast set top box will allow you to watch any encrypted channel you currently subscribe to. However, the RF output connection from the box, which will need to connect to the input of your Pinnacle PCTV card, is not HD capable. The set top box will convert the incoming signal to analog and output over the RF connection.

-Wolf sends

So some of the channels 1-120 may be watchable, from Comcast, and some may be encrypted even though they are not HD channels. Will the TV tuner card pick up the non-encrypted channels after scanning for channels?

Without a set top box, the TV Tuner will only pick up the unencrypted channels. If your TV is cable ready, do as Wisecracker suggests. Connect the TV to the cable directly from the wall and have it scan channels. What ever channels your TV picks up, those are the ones that are unencrypted.

-Wolf sends

Windows media center windows 7 home premium only picks up 21 channels when you connect the cable directly to the TV card. Why is it the if I have an old analog picture tube TV and connect a comcast black box I get all the channels I subscribe too but when you add the comcast black box between the outlet and the tv tuner card no more than 21 channels are found going through windows media center windows 7 home premium? I have downloaded from PC TV the latest driver, software, etc. Maybe I am not understanding about a TV tuner vs. a pc card TV tuner?

No. I think you're understanding it correctly (maybe I'm not).

With the set up going from the wall outlet to the Comcast Set Top Box to the PCTV Tuner card, and then to your TV, set the channel on the PCTV Tuner card to channel three. Then use your cable remote control the change channels. Does that work? Do you see all the channels you subscribe to now?

-Wolf sends

Ok I will try that when I get a chance later today. Would I change the pc t v card, to channel 3, from pctv program or from within windows media center windows 7 home premium? I am a newbie at this as you can tell from my questions.

It's been a while since I used one/set one up. I think you just need to use Windows Media Center to change the TV Tuner Card to channel three, and then use the Cable Remote to change the set top box channel. By doing this, you *should* be able to watch any channel you subscribe to.

-Wolf sends

I got it to work with TV center program by setting the tuner to channel three and using the comcast box remote to change channels. The EPG however does not work with this.

Next question is now that I have the comcast box working when I go into windows media center windows 7 home premium I cannot view any channels. It says no antenna is attached or there is no signal. The screen then fills with a bunch of pixels and it will not show any channel no matter what. I tried putting WMC on channel 3 and hitting the comcast box channel buttons up and down but this did not change anything. When I tried to rescan for tv signal it fails because it cannot find an IR remote.

Ok. Well let me ask this. Is this your Pinnacle PCTV card? If so, do you have the remote control and IR Blaster connected to the PC?

Check with Pinnacle's web site/Customer support to see if there are any Windows 7 Drivers for this card. Vista drivers *should* work, but if 7 drivers are available, use those.

Also go into control panel/Hardware devices and see if you have any conflicts (Yellow triangles). If so, try to correct those (usually means a driver install/update is required).

-Wolf sends

The good news is believe I got this one --- the bad news is I believe I got this one.

I suspect WMC7 will not pick up your analog channels without a hardware mpg decoder on the tuner card. Pinnacle most likely has a software mpg decoder which works with their player and software - but not with WMC7. The Pinnacle software package/player is called TVCenter.

Good News: TVCenter is supported in Win7
Bad News: You might have to pay $10 for the latest version of TVCenter for Win7 support

It looks as if Pinnacle tuner cards are now PCTV tuner cards. Read it and weep.

Apparently, older versions of TVCenter will not work with Win7, only XP & Vista, BUT for the paypal price of $9.99, TVCenter 6.4 will work with Win7.

Kinda sucky of Pinnacle to abandon support of a product in favor of a pay service.

You might be able to install your version of TVCenter on Win7, run your cable directly to the card and scan for channels through TVCenter, possibly by disabling WMC7 -- and watch through TVCenter. If you have Win7 64-bit, though, the Magic 8-ball sez "Outlook Not Good"

I got it to work by keeping the pc tuner on channel 4. I can change channels through the comcast box now. The only thing is the tv schedule and tuner do not match. You cannot schedule recordings when using a comcast box. You have to start recording and manually stop recodings this way.