Weird stuff...

Antenna CM4221 (the old model)
Cable up to my splitter
- 1 cable, 9 feet to a HTPC, Hauppauge 1600, I receive 11 channels (no CIII, no WUTV, barely CHCH) I am 16th and 48 in Markham
- 1 cable , 30 feet, HDTV LG (or something like that), I get all 20+ channels perfect reception...

I would conclude it is my Haupauge card but.. am I wrong ? (I use media player, wintv and .. can't remember the 3rd one, to check signal strength) and they all report the same issue. Which kinda makes sense.
I believe I installed the latest fix and also I checked the cable was fine (i did not add a filter on the cable to the HTPC)

Thoughts ? links ? Blame ?

Chris

If you can, you could determine if it could be a cable issue. Run an extension from the 9' cable to your TV. If you pickup only 11 or less channels, then your issue is the cable. If you pickup all 20+ still, then the likely candidate is the 1600 card.

From researching, the 1600 is a mediocre card, and has very mixed reviews. It is an older platform card, which utilizes older tuner technology. A HVR-2250 or 1250 are more sensitive, and could be possible replacements if you have a free PCIe x1 slot available. The 950 USB stick is also supposed to incorporate a decently sensitive tuner as well. There are other manufactures too, but I have not exposed myself to their products, so I can't really recommend anything from them, but others should be able to.

It is a fact that the newer the tuner version, the better the capture rate. I have an older Samsung tuner box which may get only half the channels on the same set up as the newest versions built into TV's.

You should also swap ports on the splitter to rule out a bad splitter port.

Plus they have better multipath performance.

I have seen tuners with widely varying degrees of adjacent channel or strong signal rejection.

My LG TV does a better job in getting edge channels than my Samsung or Toshiba, not all tuners and TV components are alike in getting OTA.

There's a thread here that discusses this.

I notice a big difference between a Samsung TV and Hauppauge HVR-x250 tuner cards as well. It's especially noticeable with analog TV. There aren't enough ATSC channels here to draw any conclusion with those. I've got to wonder if computer generated noise might have some effect on the S/R ratio in the tuner cards.

I was considering a samsung as well as i have heard they are really good televisions, but i am wondering if i should rethink that from the perspective of which would be better for ota digital broadcasts.

If you haven't already, update the tuner drivers to the latest on the hauppauge web site. Go to the support section for your card, and grab the standalone driver at the bottom of the page (Aug.31/10), and update. While there, grab the signal monitor utility from the support section for your card. With that running, change channels in viewer of choice - do you see any activity at all for the missing channels? High error rates?

For what it is worth, I receive the same number of channels (24) on my HVR-950Q and both my Samsung TVs (46" LCD and 50" plasma)

Since the HVR-950Q is a USB tuner (outside the PC) my assumption may make some sense. Is the quality the same for NTSC channels?

Yup, they can vary greatly. I have 4 tuners that behave differently in weak signal conditions (DTV only) I rate them as
1. Hauppauge Win TV 950q amazing little device I have 2 on one computer.
2. Samsung LCD 32” has some kind of built in gain control/enhancer works well to lock ‘em in.
3. CM 7000 no HD so it may be an advantage to drop to 480 where the others can’t.
4. Wingard 1010* fussy, fussy, first to freeze.
With good signals the all perform equally well.

Thanks Folks,
Marbles_00: good points, I will check the cable and the splitter
x4mer: Let me re-recheck the driver. I usually use TSReaderLite, will that work too instead of the MyTV one ? (I'll check the error and signal strength)
And I will check the HVR-950Q...

Chris

Just for closure on the thread
Installed 950q, got 100% on all channels with exact same setup

thx folks
Chris