Mininum hardware requirements for Cable Card

[DenCollins]

Doe anyone here know what the mininum hardware requirements are for installing a cable card are? I’m attempted numereous times to install
a SiliconDust HD Prime on my HPz560. It “sees” the unit in TV Setup but crashes when I hit the “Next” button to complete the setup.

The Hp Z560 is a follows:

Intel Pentium D 3.0 GHZ
3 GB Ram
Nvidia  GT 430 1GB Ram
Windows 7.

I got a feeling the the the HD Prime requires a Intel Core 2 Duo or higher.

Any thoughts?

 

[Aaron Ledger]

Have you run the Digital Cable Advisor (DCA)? This tool verifies your system meets the minimum system specifications for using CableCARD in Windows 7. It is also a requirement to use CableCARD. It is available in the Extras gallery in Windows 7 Media Center.

[DenCollins]

As a Matter of fact, I have. But every time I try to run it, it goes through the
steps and crashes at the very end. I even tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it.
Still, No joy. I know the SD Cable tuner is good (and paired) because I can stream (wireless) live tv to my lap top which is Intel dual core.

But here’s the kicker…I can view all of the stations from the cable card tuner using the silicon dust “Quick Tv Viewer”. It’s just that I can’t get WMC to follow through on the TV signal install.

 

[johnw248]

Before you run the DCA, run the Windows experience factor (the test looks at that). Your graphic card is good, is your monitor HDCP compliant? (The nVidia driver for the 430 will tell you) Also the DCA would like more than 3 gig RAM and might not pass you on that.

BUT, search here for by-pass DCA. Read and follow the instructions and it will pass the test for you. There might be other problems that could prevent you from setting up cableCARD but it should get you to the next step.

BTW, what you are seeing is Quick TV is only channels that are not marked for protection. What you get will vary widely by content provider/cable company.

John

[DenCollins]

[quote=johnw248]

Before you run the DCA, run the Windows experience factor (the test looks at that). Your graphic card is good, is your monitor HDCP compliant? (The nVidia driver for the 430 will tell you) Also the DCA would like more than 3 gig RAM and might not pass you on that.

BUT, search here for by-pass DCA. Read and follow the instructions and it will pass the test for you. There might be other problems that could prevent you from setting up cableCARD but it should get you to the next step.

BTW, what you are seeing is Quick TV is only channels that are not marked for protection. What you get will vary widely by content provider/cable company.

John

[/quote]

 

>John

I did run the bypass early on and it did not yield any results. Perhaps I need to run it again. On the subject of ram… I don’t think thats the problem because I am running 2 ATI DCT’s on my VAIO XL3-VGX and that has 3 gb of ram. However, the Vaio is an early adopter machine with a Cable Card enabled bios. And Yes, The Monitor is HDCP Compliant.

The Windows experience factor gives me a score of 4.7 which is based on the lowest factor which is the Processor (Intel Pentium D 3.00 GZ)

Memory is 5.6
Graphics 6.6
Primary Hard Disk 5.7

So, That leads me to believe that maybe the processor just isn’t up to the task. Will report my findings after I run the DCA Bypass again.

[DenCollins]

Well, Did run the DCA Bypass Again. Still no joy.
If I launch the DCA from within WMC I can go through two screens and on final one I get an message “Invalid Application”. If I go to the normal channel of TV Setup and get to part were it “Sees” The Cable card tuner. It asks “set up with these results?” I hit the “Next” Button and WMC quits and restarts.

Oh Well.

[Aaron Ledger]

As far as the DCA goes, perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling might be something to try. If you are bypassing it, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

You could try completely wiping out your WMC database and starting from scratch. Start>type cmd and right-click to open as administrator, then use “mcupdate -MediaCenterRecoveryTask”.

[DenCollins]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]As far as the DCA goes, perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling might be something to try. If you are bypassing it, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

You could try completely wiping out your WMC database and starting from scratch. Start>type cmd and right-click to open as administrator, then use “mcupdate -MediaCenterRecoveryTask”.[/quote]

>Aaron
Thanks for that tip. I’ll give it a whirl and report back with my findings.

[DenCollins]

[quote=DenCollins][quote=Aaron Ledger]As far as the DCA goes, perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling might be something to try. If you are bypassing it, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

You could try completely wiping out your WMC database and starting from scratch. Start>type cmd and right-click to open as administrator, then use “mcupdate -MediaCenterRecoveryTask”.[/quote]

>Aaron
Thanks for that tip. I’ll give it a whirl and report back with my findings.[/quote]

mcupdate -MediaCenterRecoveryTask comes up as unrecognizable task or batch file in the cmd prompt

[johnw248]

If you are currently running ATI DCTs or if you have run ATI DCTs then you DO NOT have to run the DCA. It won’t complete because it sees your Bios is already cableCARD enabled. If you run into a problem where there is no PID use the one from your Vista Sticker. I don’t think the generic will work in this instance but it might. Anyway the PID should just appear white on white and if you can click next you don’t need to enter anything.

John

[DenCollins]

[quote=johnw248]If you are currently running ATI DCTs or if you have run ATI DCTs then you DO NOT have to run the DCA. It won’t complete because it sees your Bios is already cableCARD enabled. If you run into a problem where there is no PID use the one from your Vista Sticker. I don’t think the generic will work in this instance but it might. Anyway the PID should just appear white on white and if you can click next you don’t need to enter anything.

John[/quote]
The Machine I’m referring to is NOT the Vaio w/ ATI Tuners.
It is an HP Z560 DEC running Win 7 as stated in my very first post on this subject. I am trying to get the Silicon Dust Prime DCT to run on the HPZ560. My understanding is that that there is no PID required for the Silicondust or in Window 7. The only place the PID number was required was in two instances, 1. If you were running an OEM Cable Card Machine and 2. If the ATI Firmware was 1.7 or lower. Otherwise, the PID doesn’t exsist in Windows 7. I’m beginning to believe that the HP Z560 is just not up to the task. Mainly because the Processor is an Intel Pentium D which is essentially 2 Intel processors running on Hyperthreading technology.

[Aaron Ledger]

I am really not sure what the minimum requirements for passing DCA are, but if it failed it would it should tell you that your machine was not up to snuff instead of crashing. See Pete Brown’s blog entry with screenshots for what a failure looks like.

FWIW, SiliconDust requirements are

• Dual Core PC
• Windows 7 
• 2GB RAM 
• 4-8GB disk space per hour of HD recording, 1-2GB per hour of SD recording 
• 100 or 1000Mbit Ethernet network 
• Subscription to digital cable service CableCARD (M-Card) from your cable provider

[johnw248]

For your HP Z560 you WILL need a PID. It’s required whenever you run a cableCARD device with Win7. It is part of the licensing deal with MS and CableLabs. With Win7 the PID generated by the DCA is generic so if you run the DCA on another machine you can copy it over to this machine. BUT the other thing the DCA does is remove the Special BIOS requirement.

SD has published a generic key in their form on the HD Prime so you can copy it from there. I though you were running the other machine in which the generic key might not work since it would have had a unique manufacturer’s lot key.

If you’ve run the by-pass and you still can’t set-up the tuners then there something else wrong with the Win7 installation. If the problem is just you can’t find the tuners then you can run the OCUR discovery job to detect the tuners for Media Center.

[DenCollins]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]I am really not sure what the minimum requirements for passing DCA are, but if it failed it would it should tell you that your machine was not up to snuff instead of crashing. See Pete Brown’s blog entry with screenshots for what a failure looks like (http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/extremewindows/archive/2010/12/30/digital-cable-advisor-lets-you-know-if-your-windows-7-pc-is-digital-cable-ready.aspx). FWIW, SiliconDust requirements are Dual Core PC Windows 7 2GB RAM 4-8GB disk space per hour of HD recording, 1-2GB per hour of SD recording 100 or 1000Mbit Ethernet network Subscription to digital cable service CableCARD (M-Card) from your cable provider[/quote]

That’s the answer right there. Dual Core processor. Thanks!

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