:p As there are at least three GBPVR users in Hong Kong I'd like to start a special thread for us to discuss the issues affecting us due to our location. Some of this comes from my searches around, and some from JKSmurf's posts elsewhere on this board.
Hardware : I bought a Hauppage PVR 150MCE card at DV Club shop, 1st floor Wanchai computer Centre. It had no remote control and cost HK$880. They also had the PVR 500 for about HK$1,500. That seems expensive, but I wish now I had bought the two channel 500 model so that I can watch a different channel when recording.
Weather : The Weather plugin on GBPVR.com has a setting for HK and seems to work well enough. You can change it to show deg C instead of farenheit by selecting "SI units" in the properties. I would prefer to get the data from http://www.underground.org.hk, particularly wind predictions and speed histories. Has anyone done that?
TV schedules : The best software to do this seems to be TVxb, which has the local broadcast stations, Star and Now broadband. JKSmurf has done some work customising these as the standard settings are not quite perfect. See http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=8339. Some of the program descriptions downloaded from the channel websites seem quite long, and often have the Chinese version before the English, so it doesn't display well on the standard schedule screen.
Now Broadband : It ought to be possible to use an irBlaster pointing at your Now Broadband to get GBPVR to change it to the right channel. I haven't tried this yet but intend to. I have successfully connected the Now broadband to the Hauppage card via an S-video cable, with broadcast TV coming in to the aerial socket.
NTSC / PAL : In my apartment block (in Discovery Bay) we get the terrestrial channels and several STAR TV channels mixed together in the analogue signal coming from the "aerial" socket in the wall. Most of these are in PAL, but BBC World is in NTSC. The Pal version of the hauppage card can't decode that so the choice is either to get another (NTSC version) card just for that channel, or (if you have NOW broadband) subscribe to it on that for an extra HK$12 a month. I'll go for the latter I think.
Does anyone know of a local shop selling good looking, small computer cases suitable for living room use?
Has anyone tried any local brand of remote control, or is it worth getting the more expensive hauppage one?
Ive noticed something, not ALL threads are listed when you "browse" the forum, when you then search for something it comes up but you cant see this searched item in when browsing that forum it should be in.
Ive tried both as a guest and logged on and makes do difference.
Above thread is in SUPPORT, now go to support and browse, your notice its not there, it clearly is so why cant I browse it, I can only search to find it then look at it????
What's going on there, how many other threads are not listed unless you search for them using the search facility???
Do Americans typically say 'goodbye' at the end of a phone call? They never seem to on TV. Its kind of like they say a few sentences then just hang up. Maybe its a New Zealand thing, but here we'll typically say some sort of goodbye at the end of a conversation.
(just wait for my next rambling on coke vs pepsi...)
When I am in myvideos and trying to burn a DVD of some shows, I hit the Ctrl-R key and add them to my DVD but when i hit F11 (according to the WiKi), it takes me back to the main menu, as though I had hit home or esc? F11 seems to act this way throughout MyVideos.....
I found an error that I can recreate consecutively and although I have not tried the latest version I don't remember seeing anything in the forums or changelogs of the new version for it. So here goes...
1. Set GBPVR to have a reoccurring recording
2. Search the "Search Guide" for the same show as the reoccurring one in the previous step and set one instance found to record - it will accept this.
3. Attempt to go into the TV Guide - it now errs with a message that the unique identifier number "blah" is already present when trying to add the unique identifier number "blah" (not the exact message but you get the idea)
I found this issue when attempting to record a repeat show on the same channel as the reoccurring shows
Maybe someone with the new version can attempt this and see if it is still an issue?
1. When setting a recording for season this time slot, daily. It will record will still record the show at other times. A perfect example it the daily show GBPVR is set to record it at 11:00 daily but it also records the 1am repeat as well. It this just a function of how the program defines time slots or do i have something odd going on? Oh yes and avoid duplicates it turned on.
2. occasionally when starting the config utility it will loose all my program guide data and cause me to have to re-setup the tuners an re-occuring recordings
(hauppuage 500 w/ zap2it guide if that makes a difference)
I have a problem I cannot figure out. The computer wakes up fine from hibernation to start recording. However, it goes into hibernation while a recording is in process - which results in an interrupted recording.
I do not know why it is doing this as there is a lot of cpu activity while recording. This is a new computer so I do not know its quirks yet.
ANy ideas why it hibernates during a recording?
I have Zap2It setup to pull 15 days and setup to pull at 3AM but I have noticed lately for some weird reason that Friday evenings (even this upcoming Friday) there is a huge amount of programming missing.
However when I go further into the week it is fine until it comes up to the next Friday and again the gaps occur.
Can someone explain why this may be as I would think that when GBPVR updates as it gets closer to Friday it would fill the gap?
I have a lot of manual recordings because a lot of the channels I watch always seem to run delayed. In the pending and reoccurring recordins only "manual recording" show up as opposed to the program name. Is it possible to have the program name show up. Like "(MR)Minha Vida" or some such.
Unless there's another method, the only way to adjust the various picture related settings for recording is to edit the direct.ini file. This is for the Hauppauge 250 and kin.
This seems rather trial and error. Record something, watch it, make a change, record, watch, change....
It would be nice to be able to make the change with a preview window open and see them, even if it's slightly delayed due to the encoder.
I guess another option would be to use the WinTV2000 settings, so we could adjust them there.
My new card seems brighter than my old one. I can get the settings to look pretty good in WinTV, but GBPVR looks overly bright and washed out.
