HDTV Wonder help

[cybercla]

I just recently purchased a HDTV Wonder and so far it works pretty good with the antenna provided, but Im wondering if Id be able to pick up the hdtv channels provided by my local cable company with the card if I were to get their hdtv receiver.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[reboot]

Of course. Just plug in the cable from the box to the card.

[CityK]

Originally posted by reboot
Of course. It would be the case if cybercla was asking about receiving analog signals, but as the question was about hdtv channels the answer is no. The reason being:

In North America, digital cable utiziles the signal modulation scheme known as QAM. Thus, in order to receive the signal, your card has to be capable of QAM demodulation. The demodulator in the HDTV Wonder (ATI/Nxt2004) is indeed capable of this function, HOWEVER, ATI has not provided drivers that realize this capability ... (either that or they have crippled the demodulator on the hardware level, but the former is the much more plausible of the two). So you're dead in the water.

That being said, there are several hdtv cards that do have full support for QAM. However, even if you have hardware and software support for QAM demodulation, many cable companies are now broadcasting encrypted signals. So unless your cable company broadcasts unencrypted channels (which in most cases usually turns out to be just the locals you can recieve OTA anyways) you're dead in the water again.

[CityK]

but as the question was about hdtv channels which also means that it should have been posted in the HDTV / DVB / TiVo (http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=64) forum :)

[jggimi]

For additional assistance.