Comments on: Hackit: DTV converter boxes?

By: Galane

Galane — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:51:45 +0000

The RCA DTA-800 has a spot for an S-Video jack. Poke around the web and you can find out what other parts you’ll need aside from the connector.

IIRC, that RCA model is also dead easy to convert to 12 volt because it has a separate power supply inside that outputs 12 volts. Simply disconnect the PS internally and wire up a connector on the back panel. If you want to get fancy, install a switching jack to automatically reconnect the AC/DC board when the external DC is disconnected.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 06:21:54 +0000

Funny.. I’m reading this 2 years later; guess what – my cable company has finally switched everything over to digital – I still have an old analog TV, and even though I got a couple converter boxes a while ago, they didn’t give us enough boxes for all the TV’s.. so now, as of March 1st my tv only picks up the first 23 channels, and out of those 23 channels they managed to squeeze in channel 70 (which is now the cable companies full time advertising channel) and channel 98,99 (which are both home shopping network channels) funny how it works huh?

anyway looking back and reading through all of this stuff now is really opening my mind into the way all of the stuff works – I actually came across a video where a guy simply ripped a DSL filter open and used the filter to convert the digital signal to analog – no clue if this actually works or not, but that’s what got me doing research.

By: Mandie Skyers

Mandie Skyers — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:18:14 +0000

I get all my hd radio stuff at this small site.

By: cdog

cdog — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:32:58 +0000

is there any way to tap the MPEG 2 signal after its tuned and before its converted to analog and send that to something like a DVR thru FireWire or to a DV Camera thru firewire? that would be a great way to time shift shows and watch them on your terms.

Any ideas on which DTV boxes have the most potential with this?

By: lawdog

lawdog — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:03:36 +0000

i get free analog cable..is there a way to use a tv tuner card for a pc to hack the digital signal without a cable box that anybody knows of?

By: richard

richard — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:57:57 +0000

is there a way to convert a motorola digital converter box to be used as an dtv tuner ?

By: charles

charles — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:10:08 +0000

i don’t knw if am on the right site. i want to model and simulate a Converer Box. but i don’t have the cicuit pls can someone help. thanks

By: HapTrail

HapTrail — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:35:09 +0000

Greetings,
I have 7 old CRT TVs wired on the cable system over the years. I bought a DTV converter with my gov.coupon. The first thing I did was connect it to the cable to see if it would work with the cable’s Digital Signal. It did NOT.
As I understand it, my cable system puts the digital signals in the UHF band. I wonder if an old fashioned UHF to VHF block converter would bring those UHF cable signals down so that the DTV converter could tune them in. Just to save the cable rental $ for those bedroom TVs. If I find my old unit I will try that.

By: Jones

Jones — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:52:18 +0000

I don’t believe anyone has addressed the question, looking for tech/hack savy:

My cable company transmits both analog and digital. Can any of these be used to pick up some of the digital channels? Can any be modified to be able to do so?

By: bill

bill — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:08:24 +0000

Hey Paul,
The only reason for the converters and the coupons is for those people that you refer to as m/fkrs. When the government tried to stimulate television manufacturing in the US, Japanese televisions sold for less, lasted longer, and the Japanese were broadcasting NTSC based HDTV. The government decided to reject the Japanese system and allow US manufacturers to develop an incompatible system. Because of the incompatibility, the government was forced to either give the coupons rather than alienate a large constituency by taking away their TVs. The program was never intended for distributing HD tuners for people who bought HDTVs. The loss of manufacturing in the US has made the conversion to DTV a great stimulus to the Chinese economy.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:45:40 +0000

I have the Channel Master D2A. Supposivly the BEST Box on the market with an S-Video Output. Love this thing. Great images and with the S-Video Output. Terk Indoor HD Antenna, I get 12 to 13 good channels four of the channels being HD. Only problem it converts HD into Analog just like any other box. Would have been purfect if they focused on the HDTV viewers instead of the m/fkrs who still have chathoid ray tubes. I wonder if there would be a software or hardware hack for this thing to Make the HD signal pass through as TRUE HD. Any Ideas?

By: DeathTech

DeathTech — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:20:04 +0000

Like Kweezxy157 asked, does anyone know if a DTV converter box will work with a cable TV signal?

If so, they would be great for use with DVRs, DVD recorders, and PC capture cards that lack a digital tuner, without having to rent another cable box.

My cable company, like probably all of them, sends both analog and digital channels (if you have digital cable), so I assume you’d want a converter box with analog signal pass-thru.

Unfortunately, the Channel Master CM7000 (the only decent coupon-eligible converter with S-Video out) does not have analog signal pass-thru.

By: skwhirl

skwhirl — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:22:18 +0000

Research the MPUs and find out how to init all the goodies (tuner, dacs, scalers, etc) and write your own custom TV tuner, perhaps throw up graphics and useful text with the OSD engine.

Most of those MPUs have handy dandy Cpp toolkits. Shouldn’t be too hard to hack up a customized gadget from one of those coupon converters…

By: Kweezxy157

Kweezxy157 — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:14:18 +0000

Is there an way to get it to decode cable TV? I remember when I used to have Comcast I was able to connect the ‘Cable In’ cord into a VCr and I could flip through channels on the VCR and it acted as a free cable box when my mom didnt want to pay more money for a extra box lmao.

By: Akr

Akr — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:23:06 +0000

I opened up the APEX-V100 from circuit city ($41). The PCB has 2 internal connector spots (ready to be soldered). One is for an RS-232 port. The other has 3 pins with labels JD2 and RD21 and RD23. Could this be for digital Audio out?