One of the nice things about taking a day off is that it really does
help clear the mind. And it gives one the energy to tackle painful problems, like:

Why is the tv-out signal not working since I cleaned up the mess-o-cables in the back of the new PVR?

even in the face of painful recent history involving:

• reinstalling drivers
• messing around with control panel configurations for hours
• rebooting n times
• getting depressed at the complexity of things that should be simple

So I figured I'd try something silly like plug the video card in
another PCI slot, “just for fun”. At which point I realized that I'd
plugged the cable going to the RF converter into the video
capture card, not the video out card. Sigh.