Gary's dashboard

Julie--If your laptop has a TV tuner and you can hook up to a coaxial cable outlet, then you can. However, if you only have one cable box (not the digital converter box, but the box through which you receive premium channels + On Demand) and it's hooked up to your TV, you won't be able to watch the full range of channels (premium channels + On Demand), but you will be able to watch whatever channels you receive just through the coaxial cable outlet. That's how I have my TV and computer set up and I can receive the usual non-premium channels, such as Comedy Central, ESPN, Comcast Sportsnet, as well as all the local network affiliates and many more. I suppose you could get a splitter and hook both your TV and computer to the same cable box, but then you'd only be able to watch the same channels that the cable box is tuned to using the cable box's remote, thus defeating your purpose of watching two separate channels off the same cable line. Does that make sense? – Gary, on September 15, 2009 15:48

This is exactly the set-up that I have, except HP's brand. I am able to use WMC's remote with no problem, so I chucked Comcast's crappy little remote and everything is fine, if not better. Like I said earlier, I'm able to receive far more channels, including the FM music stations (channels 900+). I'm also able to program WMC to record from the Guide.

But don't forget to reconfigure WMC's tuner after hooking everything up. And if during the configuration process you see 2 listings for Comcast in your area, select Comcast DIGITAL.

Brian and Jay--I have the HP Pavilion Media Center m8430f Desktop computer, so I'm not sure how relevant this info will be to you. In the Advanced Set Up Guide, page 43 , under the category of "set-top box connection", there are instructions for connecting the remote sensor. The remote sensor comes with an IR Emitter (a long thin cable with a mini-phone jack on one end and the IR Emitter on the other.) The mini-phone jack is plugged into the #1 input on the HP's remote sensor and the IR Emitter is adhered to the IR receiver of your Comcast set-top box. In essence, you're channeling all infrared communication that the HP remote sensor is receiving back through the Comcast set-top box into your video card.

Once this is done, open Media Center and navigate to Tasks/Settings/TV/Set Up TV Signal. You need an active Internet connection for this to work. Follow the instructions on the screen, and be sure to choose Comcast Digital for whichever carrier it is in your area. Media Center will identify it by your zip code. So far, this seems to have remedied all my problems and I'm now able to use Media Center's remote control fully functioning, plus access to way more channels than before. I would've posted this earlier, but I was still working out all the kinks and wanted to make sure this indeed solved the problem.

I discovered all this when I vaguely recalled unpacking my computer and there being what seemed to be a superfluous attachment for the remote sensor. Because so many hands are involved: Comcast, NVIDIA, Pace, HP, Microsoft, etc., it's next to impossible to figure out who to contact for support. It is, in fact, HP's responsibility, but to be fair, the set-up instructions for set-top cable boxes were there all along. Just open your set-up guides to reacquaint yourself to your computer.

I hope this helps. Remember: contact HP for further support for this problem.

My problem is that I can no longer program Media Center's guide-based DVR since ITS tuner must be set to channel 3, while the digital receiver has its OWN tuner. In other words, for me to program Media Center to record channel 5 at 10pm, Media Center needs to change the channel from 3 to 5 @ 10pm and when it does that, it returns an error saying that there is no signal for channel 5. Why? Because the tuner card on my computer can now only receive digital signals thorough channel 3. VERY FRUSTRATING! Is there a work-around? Or does your tuner box render my tuner card useless? – Gary, on April 20, 2009 05:20