I've built my PVR - entirely from parts recommended by other PVR guys, and my results are mixed at best. What I need help with is some advice on successful tweaks for USA users with similar hardware.
Still images with no motion are very good (just some color issues which I will tweak later). Moving images, however, seem to have a jerky-ghost to them, however it's subtle. It's enough to bother me though. I work in TV, and I want really good motion - not even a hint of jerkiness on camera pans, etc.

My Stuff:

Hauppauge PVR-250
Nvidia FX-5200 for output (S-video)
most recent drivers for both cards and lastest GB-PVR too.
512 Ram
Socket A MB with XP 3000+ CPU
FFDshow installed
XP-Home - Defrag every day.
Hauppauge Tweak Tool installed

Settings - Record at "Best" always
VMR-9
Decoder - Intervideo Video
"Use FFDSHOW" IS checked
"Use live preview mode..." IS checked
FFDSHOW interlacing

What else could I do? it seems like these are supposed to be the ideal settings for my hardware, no?
Thanks for all replies!!!

I have two PVR 150 MCEs both configured for the same cable TV service. Is it necessary to update the EPG for both of these cards or will one update suffice?

Hello,

I'm new to GB-PVR after giving up on MythTV. Here's what I'm running/setup:

I have Comcast Digital Cable in the Sacramento CA area.
WinXP Pro
Hauppauge PVR-500
Shuttle AN35N Ultra NF2 Mobo
Nvidia FX5200 w/ svideo out
Athlon XP 3200+
3/Mb DSL

I've installed GB-PVR and following the quick start guide I've run into a few issues/questions:

1. EPG
This takes forever to update (I'm talking about over an hour) in total, the download takes about 10-15mins and then it processes the listings for the rest of the time). In Linux this took only seconds to populate. I've tried this several times.

2. Once this is done I am missing some channels (EX: 5-13 etc...). If I take a look at my Zap2it account they are all there).

3. TVGUIDE
For the most part this is empty. If I scroll through it I am able to find 2-3 listings that actually display. I can also run into a few that will not "display" in the TVGUIDE window but a description will pop up as if there is something there that is not showing. I've removed and add sources several times and the same thing happens.

My date/time are NIST sync'd and are accurate.

4. Does GB-PVR automatically use the svideo out on my 5200 or do I need to set that up (and how)?

5. Do I have to worry about resolution when I hook up my PVR to my TV (MythTV you had to be very careful about using 720x480 or risk damaging your TV).

Thank you in advance!

Hi guys, well I got some problem with the IR Blaster that came with my PVR-150 card. To start with I am using Win XP SP2 with my firewall disabled. I have pvr-150 card. I installed the latest GBPVR a couple of days ago. I also have dish network dp301 receiver.

Everything works fine I mean downloading epg, watching live tv and so on. I was also able to schedule recording. Everything was cool until I turned on the IR Blaster in the config utility. After that whenever I schedule a program that is on a channel different to the one currently tuned then the IR Blaster successfully changes the channel to the correct one (I confirmed that) but then somehow the recording services crashes and no matter how long I wait the Pending section keeps saying the recording is scheduled. Although the folder and files are created in my hard drive for that program but the file is of 0 length which means nothing is recorded.

And as soon as I turned the IR Blaster off, everything's working fine again. that is I can schedule a recording as long as the program is on the same channel which is tuned in.

I have tried the IR Blaster program that came on the cd with the card and also downloaded the latest one from the hauppage.com web site I think they have version 1.3.23033. None worked.

So anyone can help me here?? Please.. :confused:

Another newbie question...

A quick search of the web seems to show that the USB-UIRT is the IR Blaster of choice to use with GB-PVR. Two questions:

- will it work with a normal sky digibox in the UK (a Pace device, I believe)
- where's the best place to buy from? Is the best/only option to deal direct with http://www.usbuirt.com ?

Thanks in advance

Neal

I'm a new GB-PVR user (and new to the whole PVR thing) and am generally very pleased indeed with the software. Of course, there's somethings I'm still getting to grips with, so I have a list of questions (in order of decreasing importance to me) :

- DVD Playback. Althought "Play DVD" appears in the "'plugin" tab of the config tool, it doesn't appear on my main menu, and I can't see any other way to get a DVD to play. What am I missing?
- Playback of other recordings. I've dropped Mpeg and AVI files from other sources in my defined "video" folder, and GB-PVR sees them, but it doesn't play them - generally it throws 'something' that looks mostly blank on the screen for a few seconds, and then returns. Any ideas?
- The program descriptions in Program Guide are truncated, both in the general 'diary' screen and in the detailed program screen. Is the anyway around this?
- Internet Radio just plain doesn't work

That's probably enough to be going on with!

Thanks in advance

Neal

Hi there,
First post and it's a long one and probably has a few noob questions but I would like some advice on a set-up.

I've got two PCs, Telewest Cable TV and Broadband internet and a router. What I want to do is use the fast PC as a PVR. I was thinking of getting a PVR 150 and a Media MVP box to connect to the home network for playback. I also want to play TV shows downloaded from the internet (DivX, XviD).

I don't need the TV Out of the PVR 350 as I would use the MVP and also I've got TV-Out on my video card so the PVR 150 looks ideal.

I've currently got the Telewest box hooked up to the TV (RGB Scart) and I've got the RF output combined with an ariel input piped to other TVs in the house so I can watch channels 1-4 and channel 6 has the current cable channel on it.

PCs in different room from TV.

Here come the questions...

1. I presume the PVR 150 will tune itself to pick up channels 1-6 from the RF feed, channel 6 being the cable. If I'm going to record, do I need something like a redeye serial to get GBPVR to switch channels on the cable box (Pace 1000). Can this be set up so that recording channels 1-4 switches the PVR to channel 1-4 but recording a cable channel switches the PVR 150 to channel 6 AND sends the telewest channel ID (e.g. 120) to the cable box?

2. Does the GBPVR software for the MVP allow DivX and XviD files to be played on the MVP like the beta Hauppauge software?

3. Some of the AVIs I've got are PAL and some are NTSC. Can the MVP handle this? Is there a way to switch the MVP output from GBPVR?

4. Can the recordings in GBPVR be controlled from the MVP using the remote if I install the GBPVR support for MVP i.e. can you browse the TV Guide on the MVP and set up a recording?

Thanks in advance for your help and patience.
Cheers

Hi,

First off, what a great bit of kit GB-PVR is. I will definatly be donating some cash the next time I flog some stuff on Ebay and top up my Paypal account

For info: when you setup a manual recording with XRecord, it creats a folder on the HDD called "Manual Recordings"

I use XRecord to set up manual recordings and My Video to access all my ripped dvds and recorded programs - which is fine untill I try to access "Manual Recordings" through My Video. Where I get "Error:Object not set to an instance of an object" and then I'm locked out of "My Video"

If I change the name of the folder "Manual Recordings" to another name like "Recordings" all is ok, until I do a manual record and the old folder is recreated and access denied via My Video... here is the error log

09/05/2005 15:04:13.265 ERROR [2] Error: msg=0x100 (WM_KEYDOWN) hwnd=0x302cc wparam=0xd lparam=0x1 result=0x0 : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. : at MyVideosPlugin.FileDetails.CheckForDescription()
at MyVideosPlugin.FileDetails..ctor(String file, String type)
at MyVideosPlugin.DirectoryDetails..ctor(String directory, String parent)
at MyVideosPlugin.Files.ChangeDirectory(String directory)
at MyVideosPlugin.Files.AccessGranted()
at MyVideosPlugin.Files.DirectoyStep()
at MyVideosPlugin.Files.Enter()
at MyVideosPlugin.MyVideosTask.OnKeyDown(KeyEventArgs e)
at cg.a(KeyEventArgs A_0)
at q.a(Object A_0, KeyEventArgs A_1)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnKeyDown(KeyEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ProcessKeyEventArgs(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ProcessKeyMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmKeyChar(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at q.a(Message& A_0)

This can only be some sort of conflict between XRecord and My Video. But I have no idea what. I like to use My Video because of the posters and film descriptions.

Any ideas??

Thanks in advance

Mark aka swfsnaper

how do I get my posters of the recordings to show in xrecord...?? I have the posters in the same directory as the recording but it still shows the standard poster...

Why not make it possible to set up recording online???

I would love it if I could time my PVR from the job, or from my mothers house etc.