Clear QAM Channels remapping in Windows Media Center.

We have Verizon FiOS internet and TV service. We've had it for years now and love the speed of the internet and the relative slickness of the TV and DVR guide service.

However, I love to push the envelope so I've set up a few Windows 7 PCs with Media Center to use TV tuner cards and a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun network tuner. These tuners can either get over-the-air ATSC content or Clear QAM digital cable channels. They can't get encrypted digital cable channels (that will be solved by the upcoming HDHomeRun Prime network tuner or the existing Ceton card). Most cable providers only allow the local channels and maybe a few extra channels, like the Weather Channel, via unencrypted Clear QAM.

In any case, this was a supplement to our regular FiOS DVR and cable boxes so it has never been a priority. That said, I always like things to work properly.

Alas, when using the PC tuners to get ATSC OTA content, I could never get a consistent signal via antenna because of the location of our house. We get horrible cell phone reception and even radio reception is so-so. Digital TV reception has been less than desirable.

So, since we already had FiOS TV service, I had tried using the Clear QAM feed over the coax cable to get the local channels in Windows Media Center. Almost immediately after setting this up, weird things would happen. After a few days, channel 5.1 and 20.1 would switch, as would 4.2 and 50.3. Other channels would switch seemingly at random intervals. Different PCs in the house would have different channel mappings. It all seemed so random.

After searching the Internet for a solution I finally gave up for a while and went back to the antenna. But a few months ago I had enough and decided to figure it out once and for all.


I did some digging and the issue was NOT Verizon. The back-end Clear QAM channel numbers never changed. You can find the Clear QAM channel mapping on sites like SiliconDust. If you manually enter the channels in the settings, the channels never change.

After some trial and error, I found out that it was the Windows Media Center guide update and scanning process that was screwing them up for some reason.

I found the solution. Here is a recent post about it:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mediacenter/thread/f650a689-b7f1-4382-ac3a-4d9ddcbe75d3

Also see: http://www.technixupdate.com/disable-stop-or-block-mcglidhost-exe-from-running/

Basically, you need to disable the BackgroundScanner. For the most part this works fine, except if you need to rescan for channels. In which case you can re-enable it.

In the Registry Editor, go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\BackgroundScanner.


Set the PeriodicScanEnabled DWORD value to 0

The SiliconDust HDHomeRun software for Windows has a checkbox in the settings to do this for you. If you have another tuner card you can edit the registry as mentioned in the link above.

Verizon FiOS IMG 1.6 has arrived!

What timing. We just got a second HD set-to-box delivered yesterday, and today we wake up to find out that the Verizon FiOS Interactive Media Guide 1.6 update has been applied in Fairfax County!

Kudos to Verizon for pushing this out well before the end of the year. It would have been nice to be notified beforehand, but they are usually tight-lipped about these things. C'est la vie.

When I called to order the second HD STB last week, I actually taught the Verizon rep about the upcoming upgrade. She hadn't heard that the multi-room streaming of HD DVR recordings was coming. She checked with her technical support to confirm and we were both pleased with their answer.

So we'll keep FiOS for now. :-)

HD on the PC

So I love TV. I don't revolve my life around it like I used to, but I love a good show and relish a good movie.

When we finally took the plunge into the high definition television universe about a year ago we had a slight adjustment to how we watched TV. We had been so used to our ReplayTVs, we rarely ever watched TV shows at their regularly scheduled times.

We didn't get an HD DVR from the cable company right away. We got an HD cable box and tried recording the S-video output to the ReplayTV. It was ok, but HD shows were more like DVD shows. Naturally, an S-video connection is surely sub-par when it comes to anything above VHS quality. So we watched HD shows like Lost, Ugly Betty and American Idol live at their original airing times. With commercials.

When we switched to Verizon FiOS we decided to try their HomeMedia DVR and have been using it ever since. However, as nice as the mid-2007 media guide upgrade has been, it's no ReplayTV and it's surely not as slick as the Tivo interface.

So the alternative to the cable company's DVR, besides the expensive HD Tivo and its service fee, is a PC DVR like Windows Media Center or Snapstream. Fine and dandy, except when you want to record HD content.

Over the air HD tuners are readily available for new and custom build PCs. However, there currently is no easy way to get cable TV-based HD content on a PC. (QAM is supported on some cards, but FiOS doesn't appear to support that very well.)

New PCs with video cards that support the CableCard standard have been trickling out from companies like Dell. However, you need to buy a PC with the special video card already installed--they aren't readily available on the aftermarket.

So what's a person who already has a decent PC but doesn't want to spend $2000 on a new box to do?

Check this out: the new Hauppauge HD PVR that can record HD content from component outputs.

I am excited to see how this develops.