setting up Dish Network to play in Media Center Problems

Hello. We just purchased a new desktop computer (HP Pavilion a6357). it came pre installed with a tv tuner. We have dish network.

We have hooked a small tv up the cable line coming out of the wall so we know that there is a good signal.. but when we uphook the tv and hook the line into the back of the computer the signal on Media Center is rolling (to the left), very, very dark and so full of static that you can't hardly tell that there is a signal... but the sound is pretty good.

Weird thing is that the tv shows a signal on channel 116, media center shows a signal on 117.... although when you enter 116 in media center a decent picture shows for about 1/3 of a second.

We have called HP non-support and they have had me update drivers, test monitor, etc, etc. etc..... Now they say that I need to go purchase a noise filter to place on the line. This will make all my problems go away.

Before buying something that I'm not sure that I really need I thought that I would come here and get some REAL advice.

Thanks for reading... and any and all help offered.

 

Is there an installed program besides Media Center to view TV?
If there is you might want to try it.

 

Thanks for the input...

this is going to sound really stupid, but what kind of program would I be looking for?

Also.... while trying to fix this problem was trying to install windows media center updates and kept getting a error message at the end of the install that read "Update did not complete successfully. 9995"

Thanks again

 

Channel 116 can be HRC, IRC, or STD (Standard). Dish is STD. See if there's a cable/antenna/input selection in any of the menus.

Here's a wild guess: The symptoms you describe are consistent with a ridiculously overloaded input. Too much signal is just as bad as too little signal.

The signal may be overloading the input to the tuner in your computer. The TV probably has a more robust tuner that will handle the direct output of a satellite receiver, while a computer card may be too wimpy to handle it.

Look in the Dish manual to see if you can attenuate the signal coming from the Dish receiver. If not, the "noise filter" on the line isn't out of the realm of possibility, but it isn't called a noise filter. It's called an attenuator. You can buy them at Radio Shack.

Like I said, it's a wild guess.

 

thanks so much for the reply...

When setting up media center you can choose if your signal is cable or antenna or satellite... out of sheer frustration we tried all three..

guess i'm going to buy me an attenuator.

Thanks again so much for your help.

 

o.k... this is where I'm at so far

could not find an attenuator at my local radio shack. They don't sell them anymore. But I started thinking (yeah, I know, this might be my biggest mistake so far ) about it and came to relize that son is using the tv tuner on his desktop to watch tv and is not having and problem with this cable feed... so I'm thinking that this might not be the problem.

I still can not download the update for the Vixs Pure-TV-U 48BU Tv Tuner... after going through the whole thing it gives me the "update did not complete sucessfully.9995" error message.

I have looked and cannot find an update anywhere except on the HP page....


I have tried to speak with HP support about the download problem, but no help. They had me clear my download history and checked all kinds of things... but nothing is working!

We are just about ready to box this hunk-of-junk up and take it back to Costco. The only reason we purchased this computer was for the TV tuner so that we would have a TV in the bedroom.

 

Sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase. I bought an attenuator a few months ago at RadShak. For a company that built its customer base by catering to the home electronics hobbyists, they seem to be abandoning their roots.

Got an old pair of rabbit ears or other TV antenna lying around? At least you'll know if the tuner is working at all.

I'm with you, though. I wouldn't waste any more time trying to get something working that should have worked right out of the box. Cut your losses and take it back.

If enough people return bad products maybe the manufacturers will get the hint.

 

Not your fault about radio shack... going to give the antenna idea a try, and then if that doesn't work... it's going back!

for the past two days I have read everything that I could find about this tuner... everything I find is about problems.

seems most either ask for a new tuner card or take it back. Hope they catch on quick.

Thanks for your help. Really!

 

If you buy another system and want TV in it, get a Hauppauge TV card.

 

welll... as much as I hate to go through all the trouble... this computer is going back!

Just got off phone with HP - they will send me another tuner (same brand) if I give them my credit card number first.

Any ideas on how to best get any personal info that is on this computer off before taking it back?thanks for all the help.

I told hubby that it is sad that we get better resonse from this free board than we get from the company that we paid "good, hard earned money" too.

I work at a large "home improvement warehouse".... and when people come in looking for help repairing something I always tell them about this place...
It is without a doubt the BEST site, board and people you will ever run across - anywhere!

Thanks so much!

 

Format the hard drive, TWICE!

 

Formatting a second time will not do anything more than what the first format did. It will not get rid of data. So a second format would be a waste of time.

If you really want to get rid of it, you'll need to run something like killdisk about 7 times. But unless you have credit card, social sec, bank account numbers on your pc, I don't think I'd go to all that trouble.

 

Formatting twice helps get rid of the Fuzzy Data. Yes, a wipe program does it better, if you do it twice.

 

What??

Fuzzy data??

Not sure where you people get your info, but that is not true.

Formatting a drive SIMPLY gets rid of address tables on the disc. In other words, it marks all the sectors as blank making it look like there is no data there. All data can still be recovered after a format, so long as it has not been written over.

 

Let's say you record a VCR tape. You later record over the program to store another one. In the upper and lower portions of the recorded traces of the new program, there is residual information left from the first recording. That is called Fuzzy Data. This also happens on the tracks of a hard drive, and that information can be retrieved.
Do your homework buddy. I've been programming and doing security work with computers for 40 years.

 

My understanding is that using a disk manager program to write zeroes to the hard drive, followed by filling the drive with a random source such as RF noise from a video tuner, makes it impossible to recover the data. Top-level forensic people and really, really determined hackers may be able to recover some of the data, but they certainly wouldn't do that on the off chance that the recovered data might be a consumer's credit card number or other banking info.

The surest way to prevent data from being recovered is to smash & burn the hard drive.

oneofamill, The only time I've ever heard the term Fuzzy Data is in the area of data mining, where peripheral, seemingly unrelated data is used to piece together a profile. Are you sure you're not thinking of Residual Data?

BTW, a VCR tape first passes over an erase head to randomize the magnetic particles. At this point it may be possible to restore some of the previous information, but it's highly doubtful. Within a couple of inches of the erase head is the drum, which records each video field as a helical (diagonal) scan followed by a "guard bar" between the scans. The information on the tape is 99% gone when a new recording is made over the previous one. The 1% that remains is nowhere near enough to derive a picture. Analog audio on a VHS tape is recorded by the record/play head on linear tracks above the helical scans. If the new tracks are slightly out of alignment with the previous recording it may be possible to recover a small portion of the bandwidth of one of the channels, but not likely. Alignment of the tape in a VCR is critical, so the chance of a track offset is slim to none.