Missing qam channels after fresh reinstall

Hey.

First props to the site, been here a few times and very helpful. I use a haudaphage 2250 tv tuner. I recently did a fresh install of windows seven. On previous install i had to of the "free hd channels" that the tuner can pick up. After fresh install, there gone and after several tv signal scans and manually adding the channels to no success, I feel that I am missing something. Maybe I am adding them wrong? Will you help me troubleshoot this?! :)

QAM channels? You're feeding the HVR-2250 with coax from your cable company?

If you have TWC, perhaps (like TWC/LA out here on the left coast) they've started encrypting EVERY CHANNEL... including the formerly clear-QAM free OTA broadcast network channels they re-carry.

They used to be obligated by the FCC to carry these OTA broadcast networks that you could get for free if you had a roof antenna as clear-QAM on their coax, unencrypted, which was great for your TV tuner card that doesn't have a cablecard.

Recently TWC/LA has gone with the new freedom granted by the FCC to allow them to encrypt even these OTA networks, thus essentially doing away with the concept of "clear-QAM". If your cable provider (Comcast? TWC?) has done the same recently (coinciding with your new install), then that would explain your symptoms.

Bottom line: if they're encrypting these channels now, you're F'd trying to use your HVR-2250 tuner card. Note that I, too, have one of these... but fed from my roof antenna coax, not from the cable company.

Your only choice is to either (a) get a roof antenna and tune these channels with the HVR-2250 as 8VSB from your roof antenna coax instead of QAM from your cable coax, or (b) install an internal or external Ceton cablecard-enabled tuner card or SiliconDust HD Homerun Prime outboard tuner.

I, myself, also have a Ceton 4-tuner InfiniTV4 PCIe internal card, in addition to the HVR-2250. The Ceton card is cablecard-enabled and is fed by TWC coax, but can decrypt every channel I subscribe to. The dual-tuner HVR-2250 is used for local OTA/ATSC channels. WMC handles both, so I have 6 tuners in my WMC system setup (2 for OTA/ATSC 8VSB roof antenna, 4 for encrypted cable coax QAM channels).

I'm afraid you probably have no choice, from your problem description. Clear-QAM is gone.

Thanks! I'll look into a ceton tuner to add to my system! Thank you a lot for the detailed description.