Poor reception and no EPG (1 Viewer)

[genghiskhen]

I have an indoor powered antennae and when I plug it straight into my television I get a good to great picture for all my local channels. If I move it around I can get a great signal. My television displays EPG so I believe I am receiving digital (ATSC) signals. I have an ATI 650e and I was running MP on Windows XP with this card. I had it configured to record and it worked pretty well, but I never got EPG to work. I think I was using NTSC but I am not sure. I decided to rebuild my HTPC with Windows 7 x64.

I decided to finally get TV-Server working on this new HTPC, but when I tried to configure it I could not get an ATSC signal in MediaPortal or WMC. I did some research online and it seems the ATI 650e ATSC receiver does not work in Windows 7. I purchased a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 with the dual tuners. I let MediaPortal scan for channels on the ATSC tuners and it found all my local channels, but I can't get it to download EPG for any of them. Most of them aren't watchable; I get the no signal error. I tried to scan for channels on the two NTSC tuners, and it did not find any channels.

Why do my TV tuner cards have so much worse reception than my TV? Why can't I get EPG to work? I read how cool TV-Server is, but the best I have gotten is a good picture with no programming guide. Now I can't even get a picture. Any help is much appreciated.

 

[genghiskhen]

I installed WinTv that came with my card and it gets great reception. WMC works great too. Still no channels in MP though. I have it configured as a hybrid but when I scan I don't find any channels. Any help is appreciated.

2011-02-16 18:37:48.507641 [(17)]: dvb: No TVTuner installed
2011-02-16 18:37:48.508642 [(17)]: Exception :TvLibrary.TvException: No TVTuner installed
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardDvbBase.AddAndConnectBDABoardFilters(DsDevice device)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.BuildGraph()

2011-02-16 18:37:48.651650 [(17)]: Exception :TvLibrary.TvExceptionGraphBuildingFailed: Graph building failed ---> TvLibrary.TvException: No TVTuner installed
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardDvbBase.AddAndConnectBDABoardFilters(DsDevice device)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.BuildGraph()
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.BuildGraph()
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.Tune(Int32 subChannelId, IChannel channel)

2011-02-16 18:37:48.655650 [(17)]: Exception :TvLibrary.TvExceptionGraphBuildingFailed: Graph building failed ---> TvLibrary.TvException: No TVTuner installed
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardDvbBase.AddAndConnectBDABoardFilters(DsDevice device)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.BuildGraph()
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.BuildGraph()
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.Tune(Int32 subChannelId, IChannel channel)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.Hybrid.HybridCardGroup.Tune(Int32 subChannelId, IChannel channel)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.Hybrid.HybridCard.Tune(Int32 subChannelId, IChannel channel)
at TvService.CardTuner.Tune(User& user, IChannel channel, Int32 idChannel)

 

[genghiskhen]

Summary. I am documenting my trials in case I get this working. It appears I have come up against multiple presumable unrelated issues.

* Built new PC with Windows x64 and installed all drivers and software.
* This included the ATI 650e TV tuner.
* Couldn't get the ATI 650e TV tuner to receive ATSC signal although NTSC worked fine. I tried both MP and WMC.
* Research indicates ATI 650e ATSC doesn't work on Windows 7 possibly due to driver issues.
* Uninstalled ATI 650e and removed it.
* Installed Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 and drivers. Did not install WinTV application.
* MP finds ATSC channels but reception is too poor to watch. I did not have the card configured as a hybrid card yet.
* WMC only finds one of my ATSC tuners.
* I learn how to combine tuners on a hybrid card and do so.
* MP channel scan fails (logs show card is not found although I don't know this yet).
* Install WinTV application. Unclear if I need this. It scans for channels and get great reception.
* Setup WMC. It now finds both ATSC tuners and get good reception.
* I find the MP logs showing "No TVTuner installed" even though the card appears in the TV-Server configuration utility.
* I uninstall TV-Server and select to remove user settings.
* I reinstall TV-Server. This is possible by running the MP install and selecting advanced setup. My user settings appear to still be present.
* I scan for ATSC channels and find some. I forgot that I combined my hybrid tuners in the wrong combination while troubleshooting.
* I change my hybrid tuner combination. The TV-Server fails to start. I reboot. The TV-Server fails to start. The TV-Server configuration utility fails to launch.
* I uninstall TV-Server.
* I reinstall TV-Server but the installer does not finish.
* I uninstall TV-Server.
* I reinstall TV-Server but the installer does not finish.
* I use a Windows System Restore point.
* I configure WMC again and it recorded the news for me this morning.
* I will try to get MP TV-Server working again tonight. I am hoping I don't have to uninstall MP and start over.

Do I need or want the Hauppauge WinTV application installed?

 

[genghiskhen]

The solution was to wipe and reinstall. I now have my Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 working well with MediaPortal. I suspect uninstalling the old card and installing the WinTV-HVR-2250 messed up TV-Server. I do not have EPG working yet. I have seen in other comments that it does not work well in the US, and I will probably have to use plugins to scrape programming information from websites or WMC.

I do not need WinTV installed. It is redundant with MediaPortal and WMC.

Free advice: create a backup disk image after you get Windows 7 configured and before you install SAF, MediaPortal, and StreamedMP. Update Direct X because that is the first thing SAF will ask you to do.