I recently purchased 2x Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 tuner cards for a total of 4 QAM and 4 NTSC tuners on two cards. I immediately downloaded the newest driver from the support page on Hauppauge's site (always expecting the included disc to be outdated).

 In 7MC, it detected the tuners and went through setup, waiting a long time for it to finish scanning for digital channels...but it found no QAM channels. The cable signal is strong and clean and the same connection going to my TV finds several unencrypted ClearQAM channels.

 I added the channels manually in 7MC and they all seem to work very well...but it was a HUGE pain to do that for every QAM channel, then set the correct channel numbers and listings sources.

 It's looking like I'll have to re-install Windows 7 soon, so I'm hoping there's a way to reduce all that frustration. Does anyone else know if this is normal?

Can any of you 2250 owners tell me if yours was able to find the QAM channels automatically in the scan, or did you have to add them manually?

 

Thanks!

This problem really has nothing to do with your 2250.  I have three different type of QAM tuners (HDHomerun, Avermedia Duet and Hauppauge 1600) and I got the same problem with all of them and my cable provider (time warner).

The issue is related to windows media center and the cable providers.  Basically, if your cable provider does not format the PSIP data exactly the way windows expects it then media center will not recognize the channels.

PSIP data is the key.  This is the data sent by the cable provider that contains all the infomation necessary to identify the channel.  It seems tha cable providers all over the country send this data differently then media center expects.  I am not sure who is more to blame, the cable providers or Microsoft.  I tend to believe Microsoft is more to blame.  TVs all over the country have no problems reading the PSIP data while media center seems to only be able to read PSIP data from a few cable providers.  Microsoft needs to relax their PSIP reading code to allow for some data variations.

 Thanks. That was pretty informative.

 

In this case, I don't think it's Microsoft's fault. I have always suspected that my cable company doesn't properly provide PSIP information because my Sony TV shows the frequencies instead of the actual channel numbers (all of the channels appear in the 800's for customers with a set-top box).

 

 Actually, I'm pretty disappointed that my HVR-2250 + Windows 7 can't at least do what *ANY* QAM-capable TV can do. It would have saved me from a HUGE amount of frustration if the PC could have already listed the ClearQAM channels. If I only had to fill in the virtual channel numbers and select guide listings, it would have been MUCH easier to deal with.

it does list the clear QAM channels. those that don't have PSIP data are not enabled by default. you can go through the list, enabling those channels you want displayed in the guide. then go back to the guide and change the virtual channel if desired, and add the associated guide.

As qamfan already stated, the channels are found when scanned, they are just not enabled.  Go to the edit channels and manually enable and edit channel names.  Take a look at the following screenshot The channels with the padlock are encrypted while the others are not.  I also already edited the channel names and channel numbers in two of them.

If I recall correctly, I thought I had tried enabling a few of them that had no padlock and it hung for several seconds before telling me that the channels couldn't be tuned. It looked like there were WAY too many to go through manually. I'll have to take another look.

 

Thanks!

 

Three things that help there:
1- use the SiliconDust lineup server to see what should be available to you.  Takes away most of the guesswork.
2- click "show preview" in Edit Channels.  Then, simply leaving the mouse pointer on a channel (don't click, just hover) will tune the channel, and display it in the background.
3- Use KB & mouse, not your remote, to do this.  Far, far easier with a keyboard.  ;)

I have had this card for weeks, and didn't know I could add the QAM channels manually to get HD... thank you for this post!!! I love my HTPC even more now.

Well maybe I got excited to quick, not having any luck adding my HD channels, maybe I miss understood. My regular TV will pick up the HD channels 102-1, 102-2, etc. and analog cable. But will the HVR 2250 not do that? When i go to add a channel I can't put a - or a . so my guess is no. :( bummer no HD for me.

WOOT problem fixed! Analog cable channels and Clear QAM HD channels are working perfectly!

Stupid me when I orginally scanned for channels I said I have only Analog Tuner, I should have let Media Center continue on with it showing both Analog and Digital Tuners, so rescanned and found all the channels, manually added them to the line up the one's without the "locked" symbol and boom HD channels and regual analog cable channels.

This article also helped me too for anyone else who needs this info.

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/01/manually-adding-clearqam-channels-to.html

Also note I am using the HVR 2250 tuner.

HTPC is the best thing I ever decided to build!