Voom box decoding cable TV & show in channel guide?

Seawaves

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
May 10, 2004
567
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Los Angeles, CA
Hi,

I'm getting Voom installed and I wonder if anyone else here has done this.

I have cable and my old *D* had a coax input for cable TV, could decode it and show the channels and times on the channels guide right along with the *D* programming.

Any Voomers get this to work? Because of the time zone issue (the world revolves around NY) there are still a few good late night programs on west coast cable. :cool: :cool:
 
I doubt VOOM STB can do this (it gets all PG info from the satellite, even for OTA channels), but my Harmony remote can! :p
 
I'd be happy if the Voom Motorola box would deocde for me.

I want to get a Harmony but all my equipment is in a closet so I needed to RF, I got a HTM MX-800 instead, great RF!
 
I have cable and my old *D* had a coax input for cable TV, could decode it and show the channels and times on the channels guide right along with the *D* programming.
The newest D* boxes don't do this, afaik.

The VOOM STB supports neither analog nor digital channels from cable. Is there some reason you can't use the antenna?
 
Sad to find this out, I called Voom twice and was put on hold and told it work work. The Sony SAT100, 200 & 300 Direct TV HD receivers do this and Voom box should too!

Some of us here on the west coast (PST) don't want to watch adult shows at 7-8 while our kids are awake.
 
Since I made the choice to have Voom installed after two CSR's checked with a tech and told me that the box would at least "pass through" cable TV- I might NOT have Voom installed.
 
Seawaves said:
Since I made the choice to have Voom installed after two CSR's checked with a tech and told me that the box would at least "pass through" cable TV- I might NOT have Voom installed.

Like most DBS IRD's, the Motorola has a standby RF passthrough for OTA analogs and cable analogs.

Some cable systems that carry QAM HD channels in their digital lineup also carry the 8VSB signals in the analog spectrum along with the analog versions of the channels. That is one reason they could be decoded. In this case, assuming the cableco didn't reposition the channels (they match zap2it's mapping) you could forego the antenna and utilize cable's 8VSB feeds.
 
Cam,

Well that's good news-that's what Voom was saying, though one Tech said te progarms quide would show the cable TV programing. The newer Sony DTV HD boxes will show DTV, Cable TV and OTA side by side, which is kinda neat.

Thanks for your help.
 
Seawaves said:
Cam,

Well that's good news-that's what Voom was saying, though one Tech said te progarms quide would show the cable TV programing. The newer Sony DTV HD boxes will show DTV, Cable TV and OTA side by side, which is kinda neat.

Thanks for your help.


Let us know if indeed this works as other people might be interested in knowing. Thanks.
 
I took my cable wire and plugged it into the 8vsb in the back of the VOOM receiver. Is this where the cable connection would go? Or is there another input that I should be plugging it into? Anyone know the proper connection?
 
I took my analog cable signal and plugged it in to the top RF input to the left of the RCA outputs on the back of the box, and hooked up a coax from the bottom RF to the TV and the cable signal was indeed passed through.

I don't know how to get the voom receiver to tune the channels (or even know if it can) - but it did pass the signal through.
 
What most of you folks are doing is using the RF pass-thru.

I believe the original question was about accessing the digital lineup in some fashion.

If the channels are QAM, the answer is no. If the channels are 8VSB, which the OTA HD locals would be if the cableco is carrying them intact, you can connect them to the 8VSB tuner on the IRD and assuming they haven't repositioned the channels on different frequencies, access the OTA's that way.

The cableco's have to carry locals in QAM since most HDTV owners do not have HD-ready sets--thus no 8VSB tuner. Since the cable set tops are QAM, the lineup must include QAM streams of the locals. For the folks that have HD-ready sets, most/all HD-carrying Comcast systems actually pass 8VSB streams in addition to the QAM streams. This way, a person with standard cable can access their Digital and HD locals.

If the above is true for your local cable system, there is still an issue. Since the cableco could reposition the 8VSB channel on a different frequency to "accomodate the cable lineup," the Voom IRD may not find them since it would be looking for the channels on the correct OTA frequency given it by Tribune. This is where the scanning feature will come in (in addition to bringing us other markets).
 
For the folks that have HD-ready sets, most/all HD-carrying Comcast systems actually pass 8VSB streams in addition to the QAM streams. This way, a person with standard cable can access their Digital and HD locals.
This is not true. If you were told as much by someone at Comcast, they were confused or misinformed.
 
By definition, OTA television signals only go up to channel 69. They used to go further, but these signals have since been 'reassigned' by the FCC. Analog cable systems only go up to channel 125.

Anyways, the passthrough DOES work, and will pass analog channels to yout TV's tuner, but this in no way allows you to use the program guide. I personally, use SageTV on a computer for my program guide (well, I did, until I got voom). I am currently waiting delivery of a USB-UIRT to control the VOOM box so I can have it back. Excellent program if you have never looked at it. As of now though, It does not include Program Guide info for the Locals... just the VOOM specific channels. And it does not do HD... but... it makes for a great VCR. If I am watching an HD channel, I just hit a button on my remote and it switches to the HD input on my TV.
 
TWC in my area seems to pass the local HD ch's in QAM. I used to hook uo the cable line directly to my HDTV and was able to get CBSDT....through my HDTV without an HDTV receiver. Has anyone hooked up the cable line to the VOOM box and actually received cable ch's along with VOOM ch's. It would be kind of cool....but i dont think its possible. I tried hooking up the cable line to the 8VSB connection in the back of the VOOM receiver but received no cable stations at all. Is this the right connection to hook up a cable line to? Anyone else actally watching cable through the VOOm receiver?
 
vinnyv07 said:
TWC in my area seems to pass the local HD ch's in QAM. I used to hook uo the cable line directly to my HDTV and was able to get CBSDT....through my HDTV without an HDTV receiver. Has anyone hooked up the cable line to the VOOM box and actually received cable ch's along with VOOM ch's. It would be kind of cool....but i dont think its possible. I tried hooking up the cable line to the 8VSB connection in the back of the VOOM receiver but received no cable stations at all. Is this the right connection to hook up a cable line to? Anyone else actally watching cable through the VOOm receiver?


You can't tune the analog or digital cable channels via the Voom IRD. Cable is either analog or QAM/DAVIC. What you tuned when you directly connected was a digital local via 8VSB. Some cable systems that carry HD will also carry the locals in 8VSB for people that have HD-ready sets and want the digital locals via a standard basic tier. Every system that has HD and locals carries the locals in 256 QAM because that is all the DCT's will tune.

You probably can't tune your digital locals because they have been placed on a different frequency that the Voom IRD doesn't know to "look for". Scanning will solve that. The fact that you could tune them in the past by directly connecting them to your set shows that your local system is carrying the 8VSB's in addition to the QAM's.
 
The fact that you could tune them in the past by directly connecting them to your set shows that your local system is carrying the 8VSB's in addition to the QAM's.
A number of newer televisions support QAM.
 
My Original Point of This Thread was...

if the Voom box could "decode" the cable signal, which sadly it cannot do.
Look at your basic Sony SAT-300HD box for *Rupert*.

Side by side Sat, Cable and OTA, all managed by the box and shown in the program guide. The Voom box is really lacking in the area. As well no optical/coxial for audio. And no program guide, all downers,

I have a tunerless plasma TV so instead of a cable-ready TV, I want a cable ready hi-def sat box with VOOM! The pass through option is useless to those of us with a tunerless TV.
 
Maybe I'm not understanding you, but the Voom box does have Optical/coax audio output on it. The only thing it doesn't have is the cable tuner, which, since i got voom because of my unsatisfaction with the local cable service, is fine by me.
 

VOomin in Seattle with the new 30in DISH! FYI

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