Out of all the TV tuners I've tried, I've gotten the best with the HDHomerun3. However, when I scan for channels using different software (e.g., HDHomerun QuickTV, Windows Media Center, Media Portal), I get different results. Why is that?

I hope this question hasn't been asked before, but if it has, please direct me to the appropriate thread. Thanks.

I'm just guessing here, but each software package likely sets the threshold for what they consider to be a solid signal during the scan. Likely they'll all get the same actual signal if you tune in manually, but Media Center may consider 50% signal too low while Media Portal may consider that 50% to be just fine.

Pete

Tuner sensitivity can be an issue. The ability to handle error conditions, such as multipath, can be another. Some PC tuner cards use older generation chips that are less capable than chips used in TVs or external devices.

I've also seen an issue with MediaPortal. It does not recognize some stations correctly and some not at all. The major issues appear to be with TVO and CHCH, which have known problems with stream data. Despite its other strengths, PC tuner card support in MediaPortal is marginal. That could be due to lack of technical information from card vendors or lack of a full time developer.

Which explains why I can get RF11 from my TV (at 98/100 bars), but Media Portal tells me "Nothing found".

Frustrating.

If this is a "station" issue (stream data), how do we get things corrected? I already downloaded the latest drivers for the HVR-2250, and updated the MP setup to 1.3.0.

Thanks for the all the comments. pnear and ScaryBob, what both of you said makes complete sense, but it's weird that Windows Media Center seems more sensitive to Buffalo stations than some Canadian ones (CTV in particular). Media Centre is just kind of inconsistent.