I just got an HD5000AV from Mythic.net. My system seems to reconize the card, but I can't seem to get it to watch live tv. I did an lspci and this is what I got for the card.



Now I'm new to this so I was wondering if this is normal. I then went into mythtv-setup and loaded the card. Now I go an scan for channels it tells seems to be pulling down some kind of signal. My channels.conf file gets populated with data.

Now after restarting the backend I can't watch tv. All I get is a black screen and then if goes back to the menu. I'm to the point that I think this card is bad and need to send it back for a replacement.

I had the same problems, but there's a lot that can cause the "black screen"

First, make sure that you have the "default channel" set to something you KNOW you can actually receive.

When I did a scan channels, my AirStar found about 400 channels (via QAM). Of course, only about 10 of those are unencrypted, so it would try to tune to an encrypted channel and I'd get "black screen".

There's a few things that will cause this too (ie, pulling down the channels first via XML and then doing a scan seems to mess up the channel database).

When I get home, I'll post the wiki link for "black screen" as that has some other useful tips.

Just as a test to see if the card was working I tried to pull down channels via broadcast. That doesn't seem to work either. When I select watch tv, it just flashes a black screen and then goes back to the menu.

Are you using QAM or ATSC? (clear unencrypted cable or you are hooking this up to an antenna for Over The Air?)

My assumption is that you are using QAM and it's the only card in the system:

Make sure that your "first" channel is something you can actually tune to.

In my case it defaulted to channel 1, so I stupidly put it on channel 2. But the "earliest" channel I can actually get is 18-06.

Also, do NOT pull down the channel list (meaning don't do a "fetch from channel list when setting up the inputs, just do a SCAN).
I had to set mine to "us-cable" from "default"

But if you're using OTA then I think you set yours to broadcast.

Once I did that, I would do a 'watch tv' and quickly typed in the channel # then all was well.

But if you "fetch from lineup" before you scan, it seems it corrupts the channel database and then you get black screen. I did that about 2-3 times.

The "fix" for that seems to be to remove ALL the cards and inputs and exit and then go back into the setup and add the DVB card again.

These may help too:

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... WatchingTV

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... MytTVsetup

Right now everything is set for OTA, just to test the card. I plan on setting it up for QAM though. I will try the stuff in the guide when I get home from work this morning.

Ok I tried the directions in the wiki and it was a no go. When I redid my mythbox just a while ago, it checked for multimedia cards and said that there was none. Is this right, does the os not see it as a multimedia card, and does this mean I have a bad card?

No, that's correct.

I totally freaked out when I saw that too. But I BELIEVE (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that it's referring to things like the PVR-150.

If you do a



I think you'll want to see some lines (mine's like on the 5th page or so) like:

b2c2-flexcorp blah blah, intializing.

That's the AirStar DVB card.

So here's what I had to do on mine (with JUST the DVB card in it):

Automatic install
When you get to the cards (I think it's #2 on the menu), I had to add a new DVB card (I'm pretty sure it did not list it there, but I could be wrong). I left everything defaulted (card0 and all that).

Go to labs.zap2it.com and I made a lineup for BROADCAST and unchecked the channels I knew I could not get via QAM.

Go to option #3 (I think that's the sources), called it HDTV. Enter in your login information and select the "broadcast" lineupe. I did NOT check "perform EIT Scan". I also set the channel frequency to us-cable (again, this is for QAM). I ASSUME that if you're using OTA, you set this to broadcast.

I think the install instructions have you Exit out at this point so that mythfilldatabase will run ONCE, then it throws you back into the setup.

Option 4 and pick your DVB:0 card

I called mine HDTV, set the Video Source to HDTV (that's what I'd called mine in step 3). I only left the Free to air chanels checked. DO NOT select "fetch channels from lineup" (at least for QAM, not sure about OTA).

Then I did a Scan for channels.

I set the initial scan for "full scan", Frequency table I set to us-cable, ATSC Modulation I set for QAM-256 and channel seperator, I set for 5-1. Existing channel I set for Rename to Match.

Now, I'm THINKING that for OTA you would do "full scan", Frequency table "broadcast", ATSC as 8-VSB and I suppose you could leave the rest as-is (although in my area I think I would choose seperator as 5.1).

Then wait like 5 minutes for it to finish finding stuff.

Now, since I did QAM, the middle bar (it's not signal, but it's something else I think) always sat on zero. I think I read that if you're doing OTA that middle bar/number SHOULD indicate something when it locks onto an OTA signal.

Oh, almost forgot. The initial channel was set to 1 or something. I had to set mine to something I knew I received (otherwise what would happen is that I'd pick "watch TV" and I'd VERY BRIEFLY get the OSD and about 2 seconds later it would tell me it was having troubles with the channels and kick me back to the menu).

Now, when I'd added the PVR card, that totally confused it (because I'd done things wrong). But initially with the PVR-150 card in as well, I'd go to Watch TV and get the black screen (NO OSD).

I resolved that by setting my PVR card to 1 for priority and the DVB card at 0. Then, it seemed to fix things (ie, whenever I go into WatchTV, my DVB card is always the "first" thing it shows).

I do believe that if you put both cards in a new system and run the install, it will find and setup the PVR card FIRST (I don't think that's what you want). That was my third time around setting things up and I ended up deleting both cards and then adding one in at a time manually (not physically but manually in option #2).

I hope this helps.

I just install an AirStar-HD5000AV-PCI on R5D1 using the instructions in the mythtv wiki, and it worked out quite well. Check out http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Ad ... uner_Cards

Marc

I followed your directions and when I went ahead and did the scan I got no signal found. Now I did this for both Broadcast and on comcast with QAM-256. I'm starting to think that there is something wrong with the card.

With R5E50 you don't need to follow the wiki for setting up QAM channels.

I believe that if scanning for QAM, it's "normal" to get no signal found during the scan (it's that middle bar, but I can't remember what it's called).

But I also believe that if scanning for OTA (again, you are hooking this up to an antenna, yes?) that it should show a signal.

After you do a QAM-256 scan, go into #5, the channel editor and does it show any channels?

Any channel it can "lock" onto it will show. Unfortunately it does this (at least on TW Cable) to the ENCRYPTED channels as well. However, you can remove all the "unknowns" (or sort by name). I believe you should at least see SOME of the HD channels there. (In my case I know what the channel numbers are even before this because we have a local BB site that lists all the QAM channels and their #'s).

If you have a TV that has a QAM tuner you may try have it do the scan as well just to make sure (it also will find all the encrypted channels as well as "non-encrypted"). Then you may have to sort through them to find the HD channels, but at least that'll rule out any problems.

I am not getting any signal on the tuner what so ever. I'm going to go ahead and just RMA the card and get another one. I will let you all know when I get the new card if it works.

I got the card working. It turns out that I needed to scan the high band on the QAM-256. I was able to pull down all the HD channels in my area.

In my area Comcast uses QAM-128 for their digital cable. I ran a scan of the channels and it locked onto everything. I haven't been able to watch though. I am trying to sort out the problems with PVR-150 cards in my system.