How To Enable Clear QAM in Vista (and Windows 7) Media Center

This registry fix does not work on the Hauppauge 2250 tuner with the latest updates installed on Vista Service Pack 2. Perhaps this was intentional, since it was working perfectly fine a year ago before these latest updates came out. I have tried all the steps except for sticking with service pack 1, and using those old updates. There is actually a new Microsoft update to TV Pack 2008 that is dated Feb 2010. Apparently, even with these latest updates, the 2250 is only recognized as 2 analog tuners. I refuse to reload my operating system a second time, and try to stop the updates at a certain point. I would then not be able to update the operating system when certain necessary patches come out.

I will be buying Windows 7 to correct this, since it has support for this card. Shame on Microsoft though for updating their software to make Vista Media Center less capable. It looks like an attempt to force people into buying Windows 7 who already have Windows Vista. Vista is a perfectly capable operating system, and I had no reason to update to Windows 7 until this came along.

I can see that Microsoft is too interested in short-term profits, and fails to recognize that things like this will drive customers away in the long-term. For I may buy Windows 7 right now, but there will be another 20 operating operating systems that come out in my lifetime. For future upgrades, I will consider a business with integrity that maximizes value for the customer instead of value for its business.

I have Windows 7, Hauppauge HVR1500. I followed the steps above, but none of them worked until I got to the reg edit. Maybe the steps are meant for Vista or something. The regedit worked to enable QAM or whatever, but I can't find any digital channels or something. I dont know. I hate this stupid thing, after all this time you would think they could just make computers WORK

According to Hauppauge instructions for the 1850 model 85, all that is needed for WMC is to install the driver (currently 1.38.27160.0 .

Having done this WMC can be found anywhere.

Win7 works reasonably fine but I'd like to try the WMC.

Dell Computer Vista SP-2, 4gb ram, Duo Processor.

I would like to view Clear QAM and run 3rd party acessories that are more compatible with WMC.

The updates from MS are current as of this writting.

PLEASE HELP!!! ???

Thanks in advance

pS If you tell me a certain driver needs to be installed - kind enough to tell which one(s).

I am at a complete loss and have tried many things to no avail. I am now back to square one with just the Hauppauge drivers installed and hoping for a solution.

This edit does not have a parameter 'folder' in my registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HCW85BDA\Parameters]
"AllowQAM_PowerToy"=dword:00000001

i got it to work i even get some pay channels that my box in the front room does not get like max 1 and 2 i just told it to use cable instead of antenna i also had to go and edit the listings to the right channel and two other pay channels i havent figured out what they are yet but its awsome

Failure HVR-2250 Vist32:

Under Hauppauge driver 7.6.1.27086 dated 3/27/2009. Followed the directions exactly. Although "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPrx89\Parameters" does not exist.
Installed each item and updated.

Analog tuner only found as described previously. I'm glad a made a DIXML backup prior doing this.

Using Mike's Instructions I was not able to get Clear QAM using my 2250 on Vista ultimate 64.
Its very possible that I did not read or understand the instructions clearly.
Tech support has suggested this to me today, which is what I will be trying out tonight and report back.
- Ensure that there is no TV tuner card in the system.
- Install Vista 64 bit Ultimate
- Install TV PACK
- Although they did not say this I may install the playready and the 2 patches mentioned by Mike.
- Although they did not say it, but I will update Windows at this point.
- After that Introduce the tv tuner card into the system
- Install Beta Drivers (currently as of 4/6/2009 its 4.8 http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/software/install_cd/cd_4.8a.zip
- Reboot
- I dont intend to make any registry changes.
- Configure media center
- Hopefully it does not see only 2 analog tuners. Hope it can find Clear QAM tuners!

Searching for "Ready Play" drove me crazy ... until I figured out it's supposed to be "PlayReady"

Some of the articles and threads linked to have dead links, too ... how I found it was searching for "PlayReady PC Runtime" at microsoft.com/downloads

Cheers!

Would you please take a moment to answer a question?

I have Comcast internet but i do not have pay cable tv.

Is clear Qam free without subscribing?

I do appreciate your answer.

Thanks

Thank you. This helped me get ClearQAM on my HVR-1600 to work properly with Windows 7 build 7057!

totally awesome walk through - this enabled my Hauppauge 2250 on Vista Home Premium SP1 32bit (on a 3 month old install).
VMC recognized the tuners automatically and set them up correctly - Thank you Very very much!
(win-7 was a little easier, but I still had to manually set up the tuners in MCE.)

Great walkthrough. I attempted to get a 1950 USB tuner to work in Windows 7 and it just came back with analog cable when using the beta drivers. I applied the registry edit mentioned, and then QAM was an option when I re-ran the channel setup. The QAM scan took forever but it was well worth it. Thanks!

Thanks a bunch for this info. I tested it with a Hauppauge HVR-1800 under Vista SP1 and Windows 7. In both cases the reg setting was required to detect the QAM support. NOTE: The QAM channels were not detected by default. I had to manually add them using MHealy's link above.