Perhaps this is a unique scenario, but I am trying to run my current cable service through my PC, so that I can take advantage of the recorder built into my system. The tuner I have is an old Pinnacle PCTV 800e, which can support digital as well as analog service. The problem arises with Windows 7 Media Center's detection. It detects, almost completely rightly, that my cable is analog service. It seems the only way I could get around that would be to get a box, which my service does not offer.

 I've tried workarounds like setting up digital over the air service to pick up the channels, but when turning to the channel as described in the guide, I do not get the channels I desire. So far I have tried selecting the cable service manually, hoping that by choosing a digital cable channel listing ,that it would change its detection to digital so that I could pick up the channel, but that was not the case.

I have a hunch that there is simply something I am missing, but I do not know what, perhaps some of you could help me?

To give you an idea of what I want to do, here is a link to the channel listings for my cable service: http://units.osu.edu/gateway/line_up.php

A few check points:

1. You have to know that your cable has clear QAM on it, this is different than the over the air HD/digital scheme called ATSC which is 8VSB. These are totally different modulation systems and the ATSC is not transmitted on cable.
2. Your card needs to be able to receive QAM as well as NTSC-M
3. If MC doesn't detect the digital with Win7, it's likely not there. If you're running Vista then you need TV Pack to get clear QAM in Media Center.

If you're running Win7 and your caard can get clear QAM. Check your available channels at Silicon Dust websit which will list by zip code what's available in your area with OTA and cable providers.

Then you can go back to MC and tell it you want to set-up the system manually, let it choose the NTSC-M tuner and then tell it you have another and then it should offer you the Digital clear QAM. Do the scan. It's likely that the clear QAM won't show up and you'll have to go to edit channels and add clear QAM channels. Here the list you got from Silicon Dust comes in and you can identify the channels and add them. Then go into each channel and find a guide listing. Save and exit and the channels should appear in your guide.

The drawback is anytime the cable co changes the VCT (virtual channel table) which is on their own boxes and in cablecards) you'll have to find and set-up the channels again.

Check out the SD website first before you invest any time in this to make sure what you think is there in the clear is there and is clear, more and mroe cable cos are encrypting their digital signals.

John