O.K. so here's the deal 
I'm the imbecillic owner of my second Toshiba laptop: a Qosmio - they all have built-in tv tuners. (No documentation or directions, but the hardware's there if you can figure it out yourself. Tech support team is located, I believe, somewhere in Tibet and staffed completely by deaf monks who don't speak English.)
Bedroom #1 has a coaxial dish line; a set-top converter box AND a phone line (now mandatory with DISH: they fine you if they try and "call" your box and it's not connected to the phone line!) Bedroom #2 (currently without TV after the untimely death of a "Soyo" 32" LCD television; 14 months into a 12-month warranty :river) HAS a coaxial line, but no telephone line. (So the "Soyo" had been getting its decoded signal wirelessly from an antenna on the converter box in Bedroom #1.) I want to be able to watch television on the Qosmio in Bedroom #2.
So I used an adapter Toshiba provided to connect the coaxial line to the PC and ran the set-up software. The "Soyo" always had to be set to Channel 73 to work, but the Media Center set-up software will only search for signal on Channels 2-4: all of which are, of course, just static and no audio. That's problem "A".
Problem "B" : The computer came with what they call an "IR Remote". It connects to the PC via USB. Then, there's the "IR Blaster". One end of the blaster plugs into a port on the IR Remote; the other end has an adhesive pad that you're supposed to stick to the IR sensor on the converter box: that's supposed to enable the PC Remote Control to control the converter box functions. Which doesn't make much sense to me because it means that the computer HAS to be in the same room as the converter box: so why would you even NEED another remote when you could just use the one to the converter box
If someone can make questions out of this mess and then answer them, I sure would appreciate it. I'm in withdrawal from having no "History Channel" for almost a week now. :river
Alice
I'm the imbecillic owner of my second Toshiba laptop: a Qosmio - they all have built-in tv tuners. (No documentation or directions, but the hardware's there if you can figure it out yourself. Tech support team is located, I believe, somewhere in Tibet and staffed completely by deaf monks who don't speak English.)
Bedroom #1 has a coaxial dish line; a set-top converter box AND a phone line (now mandatory with DISH: they fine you if they try and "call" your box and it's not connected to the phone line!) Bedroom #2 (currently without TV after the untimely death of a "Soyo" 32" LCD television; 14 months into a 12-month warranty :river) HAS a coaxial line, but no telephone line. (So the "Soyo" had been getting its decoded signal wirelessly from an antenna on the converter box in Bedroom #1.) I want to be able to watch television on the Qosmio in Bedroom #2.
So I used an adapter Toshiba provided to connect the coaxial line to the PC and ran the set-up software. The "Soyo" always had to be set to Channel 73 to work, but the Media Center set-up software will only search for signal on Channels 2-4: all of which are, of course, just static and no audio. That's problem "A".
Problem "B" : The computer came with what they call an "IR Remote". It connects to the PC via USB. Then, there's the "IR Blaster". One end of the blaster plugs into a port on the IR Remote; the other end has an adhesive pad that you're supposed to stick to the IR sensor on the converter box: that's supposed to enable the PC Remote Control to control the converter box functions. Which doesn't make much sense to me because it means that the computer HAS to be in the same room as the converter box: so why would you even NEED another remote when you could just use the one to the converter box
If someone can make questions out of this mess and then answer them, I sure would appreciate it. I'm in withdrawal from having no "History Channel" for almost a week now. :river
Alice
