UK NTL Analog Cable (1 Viewer)

[IanW]

Hi,

I'm in the process of putting together a HTPC for my lounge. I am waiting for the case to arrive and I have a Hauppauge PVR500 waiting to fit into it.

After searching the forums for a day I have a question that I haven't found an answer to.

Firstly, I am connected to the NTL analog cable service with a General Instrument CFT-2100 STB. This box currently connects to my VCR, DVDR and TV (daisy-chained) using coax cables. The terrestrial channels are available as normal with the 'cable' channels avaiable on a different frequency. Here is a small chart that describes the setup.

BBC1   ch27
BBC2   ch29
ITV1   ch32
...
Cable  ch57

The cable channels are then accessed through the cable remote

SkyOne     ch07
UKTV Gold  ch08
SciFi      ch30
etc

I would like to have the possibility of recording two channels, or watching one channel and recording another (the reason I bought the PVR500).

Now to my question Is it possible for MediaPortal to achieve this?

If I want to watch BBC1 the tuner changes to ch27, but if I want to watch SkyOne then it must tune to channel 57 and then change the cable channel to 07.

I hope this makes sense and I hope that this is possible.

Regards, Ian.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Yes you can but the limitations are the ntl stb will only output the tuned channel, so you can have one connection direct to your ntl and one to a external aerial for BBC1 etc.

8)

 

[IanW]

Hi Ray,

Thanks for the reply.

I only have the one connection between the STB and the TV, I do not have an external antenna. To watch BBC1, etc. I do not need to control the STB, just the TV remote. If I want to watch SkyOne, then the TV is tuned to ch57 (the stb) and then the cable remote is used to change to the correct cable channel.

If I select BBC1 from the EPG then the tuner should tune to ch27 and if I select SkyOne, then the tuner should tune to ch57 and the stb should change to ch07.

Is this possible?

Regards, Ian.

 

[IanW]

Hi,

As there have been no more responses to this quey, I will assume that what I want is not possible.

Who do I contact to in the development team for information so that I can recode the necessary files to achive what I want? (I can't believe that I'm alone in having this problem).

Regards, Ian.

 

[Alander]

The way I understand it:

To get MP to change the channel you need to set the channel to be controlled from an External box (requiring a IR sending device such as USB-UIRT). This option then only allows you to receive via non-tuner connections (e.g. RGB, SVHS).

This would require you to send the signal from you cable box to one of those connectors (or via another device e.g. VHS recorder) on the TV card.

If you leave the arial on though you should be able to get those channels as normal. Whether you can get it to view/record from the separate sources at the same time I don't know.