If you're like me (read cheapass nerd) you have "lifeline" super basic cable for ~$20 a month and use Windows Media Center as a DVR for free. If you've screwed with setting up high def clearQAM (mostly local channels), you know it can be a major PITA. Well, recently TWC in their grand wisdom, decided to scramble a few channels (WGN America, OWN, C-SPAN and the Golf Channel), changing the numbers on the existing local channels, rendering the setup !#@$ed. See letter from TWC at the bottom.
You can get a "free" basic box for a year (twc.com/digitaladapter) to view the few newly scrambled channels, but this brings in the hassle of trying to use an IR blaster to change the channel with media center, determining whether it will and/or how to output to pc in high def, etc. I think I had WGN and C-SPAN, but don't care enough about either to jack with that ish. Another ploy on their part to get you to pay monthly for their tuner/dvr combo and upgrade to a digital package for the privilege.
I went to try to auto detect through my existing channels, and there were 3,000+ entries, from duplicates, previously jacking with this, etc. I followed these steps to reset WMC, which worked nicely: http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/09/clearing-guide-data-and-tuner-setup-from-windows-7-media-center.html
Once I did that, I went through the tuner and guide setup process, then went into the guide settings and "edit channels". I had a mere 3 hundred and some options instead of thousands. I chose "auto detect" and came back later and saved the results. I had about 15-20 extra unknown channels in the guide at that point. I still haven't sorted through all the riffraff, but did determine the local high def channels are as follows:
(See link at top of post)
You can choose "more info" for the channel, edit the listing source and search on the call letters to find the proper guide listing to assign each channel. In my case I also had an OTA antenna and chose listings that were already in use for those channels. It will ask if you want to combine sources, which I did, because I wanted to use clearQAM instead of the OTA antenna (bad reception). You can go back into the channel and give priority to the tuner/antenna as you see fit.
Hopefully someone can stumble across this who might find it useful. Good luck, Godspeed, and @#$% you TWC.
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