Sometimes you have a problem tuner other times you may just be bored and curious, but either way here is how you can pull up “debugging” info on your tuners in VMC or Windows 7 MC.

While at your computer and watching live TV simply hit the “H” key.

While watching live TV through an extender or when you don’t have access to a keyboard type in the sequence “4, 1, 1, More Info Button” on your remote.

Either way you can then go left or right to see all the various debugging info, very useful for troubleshooting a particular tuner.

One thing I was really disappointed in when I picked up my Cable Card Vista Media Center system was the fact that when you use the ATI DCT’s FM Radio in MCE no longer worked. TV Pack fixed this so if you have a DCT machine and miss FM install the TV pack, slap an old analog tuner with a FM input in the machine and get ready to be able to Rock & Roll again.

I picked up an ASUS Combo 210e tuner card for $38. Out of the box it does not support Clear Qam in MCE but all you need to do is use the VistaView drivers and patch available at the following link:

http://www.vistaview.tv/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=33&Itemid=46

Sweet! I can pick up 4 of these for the price of a HD Homerun.