I am in the process of buying the parts so that I can put together a PVR and so I would like to ask you folks a quick question.
I am trying to decide which TV tuner card to go for. The truth is I cant decide on whether to go for an analogue card or jump right in with a DVB card. Â DVB does seem to be the logical choice since in theory the picture quality should be better, I get a wider selection of channels and the sound should be in stereo.
I do have one small doubt though, and its here that I hope somebody here will be able to reassure me. Even though I live in an area with very good signal strength, I occasionally get the odd picture glitch on my old  Nokia freeview settop box. I presume that this is probably caused by nearby electrical equipment.  I'm not really that worried about the odd glitch, but it has made me think. if I get a glitch when using a DVB tuner card, then the mpeg file saved from it will contain corruptions. could this result in a video stream that could be out of sync (with the audio), or even worse, unplayable from that point on ?  or in a form so that I cant edit it and burn it to DVD.
However, I imagine that if I'm recording with an analogue TV card then the mpeg will still encoded correctly, but just with the slight picture glitch encoded into it.
so, have any of you folks out there encountered many problems with corrupted mpeg files, or am I just worrying about a non-issue ?
I suspect this may have been answered elsewhere, but no matter how hard I search I can't get anything relevant.
Is there a way to have gbpvr prune 'empty' directories? I've got a lot of directories with no videos actually in them in my recordings directory and I'd prefer once the last video in the directory was deleted that the entire directory was deleted. Mainly because I'm planning on getting some sort of scripted access to the raw mpegs via VLC so I can stream better around the house, and the empty directories will be annoying at that point.
All is working well as far as viewing on the pc and recording and pulling channels down from the web pulgin Zap2it
I am using MediaMVP to watch the recordings on my television which works great.
What I need to conquer is being able to have my pc change channels on the satellite box when it needs to record various scheduled channels. Can this be done? Is there any GOOD documentation on it? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Does the pc have to be in the same room as the Satellite box?
A cool feature I have with my Dish Network box is a scheduler that allows me to set a reminder/auto tune for a show. Â
For example, I'm looking through the guide and I see 'NYPD Blue' will be on channel 31 at 6pm. Â I highlite that show and tell it to "Remind me" to change to this channel five minutes before it comes on. Â So then I go back to channel 7 and watch some other show. Â At 5:55pm, a little note at the bottom of the screen says "NYPD blue will be starting in 5 minutes on Channel 31, do you want to change to this channel now? Ok/Cancel" Â If I hit OK on the remote, it takes me to channel 31. Â Hitting Cancel clears the message. Â I think there's also a "remind me in 5 minutes" option too.
The auto tune works about the same way, but instead of popping up a note asking me to change to that channel, it just automatically does it. Â
If either or both could be implemented, that would rock. Â It doesn't need to record or go into time shift mode, just automatically change to that channel.
Is there a way to get the ratings from Zap2it? In their online guide, the ratings are there but I don't see them in the programmes table in the DB so obviously they aren't being downloaded.
Noticed a strange thing today; whilst watching live TV sound was way infront of video and when I came out of live TV could not get back in. Had a lookat what was happening and gbpvr.exe was 100% and the log file was 3.03 GB!!!!! Obviously I could not edit it with notepad or wordpad. If this is a known problem I will not try to get the file off the box. If its not then I will get the file off and try and open it with vi. Any body seen this? Bug?
I'd like to use the clock element (the same one that is used in TV Guide skin) in a couple other skins... most importantly, the live guide. If I bring up the live guide, there is no clock so if you don't know what time it is, you don't know where you're at in the guide.
Is hardware decoding on capture cards only for using the card for tv out? Also, is anyone running both an analog and a hdtv card at the same time? I finally got the stuff to put my rig together, just need to get the right capture card now.
Just a wishlist for the interface that should go way behind the functionality upgrades...
- smooth scrolling menu options so you can see if you are scrolling up or down in those skins that fix the selection on the screen and move the menu items up and down.
- video-type transitions like fade or zoom or page turn between the main menu and sub-menus.
- ability to rename a plug-in on the menu (e.g. change the xrecord name to "my recordings"
