Can i view espn, not HD, or AMC, etc. with PCTV HD Card from pinnicale?

Hello,
Can I view espn, not HD, or AMC, etc. with PCTV HD Card from pinnicale? I can view some channels but not the non-HD ones other than a few. Do I need to add a comcast box between the wall outlet and the tuner? Are there codecs i need to install?

Most PC tuner cards and sticks will play unencrypted cable QAM - both analog and digital, including HD. The key, once again, is that the signal must be unencrypted. In most cases you will not need your cable box.

Encrypted cable QAM may be played through your PC with a cable card tuner. You must check with your cable company to see if they will provide a cable card for you - you must purchase the tuner.

Depending upon the tuner you select, they will provide the necessary drivers.

I don't know.

Formerly, the 'basic' and 'extended-basic' packages (essentially the first 120 channels) were 100% unencrypted analog signals. Most providers have now converted these 'packages' to digital -- some are encrypted - some not.

If you have a '120 channel-ready' TV, run your cable directly to your TV and see is the signals are scrambled - if they are not, your PC tuner should work fine.

The 'box' is essentially a tuner - in most cases with the right TV (or tuner) you do not need it. The 'scrambling' actually takes place at the cable office or at the 'pole.'

So some of the channels 1-120 may be watchable, from Comcast, and some may be encrypted even though they are not HD channels. Will the TV tuner card pick up the non-encrypted channels after scanning for channels?

Windows media center windows 7 home premium only picks up 21 channels when you connect the cable directly to the TV card. Why is it the if I have an old analog picture tube TV and connect a comcast black box I get all the channels I subscribe too but when you add the comcast black box between the outlet and the tv tuner card no more than 21 channels are found going through windows media center windows 7 home premium? I have downloaded from PC TV the latest driver, software, etc. Maybe I am not understanding about a TV tuner vs. a pc card TV tuner?

Ok I will try that when I get a chance later today. Would I change the pc t v card, to channel 3, from pctv program or from within windows media center windows 7 home premium? I am a newbie at this as you can tell from my questions.

I got it to work with TV center program by setting the tuner to channel three and using the comcast box remote to change channels. The EPG however does not work with this.

Next question is now that I have the comcast box working when I go into windows media center windows 7 home premium I cannot view any channels. It says no antenna is attached or there is no signal. The screen then fills with a bunch of pixels and it will not show any channel no matter what. I tried putting WMC on channel 3 and hitting the comcast box channel buttons up and down but this did not change anything. When I tried to rescan for tv signal it fails because it cannot find an IR remote.

The good news is believe I got this one --- the bad news is I believe I got this one.

I suspect WMC7 will not pick up your analog channels without a hardware mpg decoder on the tuner card. Pinnacle most likely has a software mpg decoder which works with their player and software - but not with WMC7. The Pinnacle software package/player is called TVCenter.

Good News: TVCenter is supported in Win7
Bad News: You might have to pay $10 for the latest version of TVCenter for Win7 support

It looks as if Pinnacle tuner cards are now PCTV tuner cards. Read it and weep.

Apparently, older versions of TVCenter will not work with Win7, only XP & Vista, BUT for the paypal price of $9.99, TVCenter 6.4 will work with Win7.

Kinda sucky of Pinnacle to abandon support of a product in favor of a pay service.

You might be able to install your version of TVCenter on Win7, run your cable directly to the card and scan for channels through TVCenter, possibly by disabling WMC7 -- and watch through TVCenter. If you have Win7 64-bit, though, the Magic 8-ball sez "Outlook Not Good"