New To the PVR World - Help?

[JordanW]

I am brand new to the world of PVR's. I just bought the WinTV-PVR-150 w/IR Blaster and have had no luck setting up channels so I DLed gb-pvr. I've studied the Wiki and am still totally lost from some of the terminology. I guess I just need help getting the configuration set up correctly from start to finish.

I'll start by elaborating on what my setup consists of:

DirecTV service using the TV connector port on the card comming from the TV port in my receiver

I'm currently trying to set up channels when I try to "update EPG" it tells me my EPG source is not configured correctly. I have DLed the XMLTV file for DirecTV and cannot get it to install. It does nothing when I click it. How do I do this given the setup I have? :confused:

Thanks so much in advance for any help you all can offer.

[chud]

welcome to the club Jordan,

i take it from your description that you have a set top box from Directv. just so we're clear, that means that you will not be using the internal tuner in your PVR150 as all of the channel changing will happen with the stb. your computer will act just like your tv, always looking to the same channel or input for the feed. i would suggest connecting your stb to your PVR150 with an s-video cable as this provides the cleanest feed. it will require you to also hookup an RCA to phono cable between the stb and PVR150 for sound.

now you need to setup a recording source. this is outlined in the wiki. if you want to use an XMLTV file that you obtain outside of GBPVR, then you need to set your EPG source to "XMLTV plugin" and point it to your file. otherwise you can use the zap2it plugin directly if you are in NA. now when you hit "update EPG" it will populate the EPG from the data in the XMLTV file.

your recording source settings should include a "source" setting of one of the external tuner settings. again, i would recommend "S-video, external tuner".

[JordanW]

welcome to the club Jordan,

i take it from your description that you have a set top box from Directv. just so we're clear, that means that you will not be using the internal tuner in your PVR150 as all of the channel changing will happen with the stb. your computer will act just like your tv, always looking to the same channel or input for the feed. i would suggest connecting your stb to your PVR150 with an s-video cable as this provides the cleanest feed. it will require you to also hookup an RCA to phono cable between the stb and PVR150 for sound.

now you need to setup a recording source. this is outlined in the wiki. if you want to use an XMLTV file that you obtain outside of GBPVR, then you need to set your EPG source to "XMLTV plugin" and point it to your file. otherwise you can use the zap2it plugin directly if you are in NA. now when you hit "update EPG" it will populate the EPG from the data in the XMLTV file.

your recording source settings should include a "source" setting of one of the external tuner settings. again, i would recommend "S-video, external tuner".

Thank you for taking the time to help CHUD!

I am using Zap2It which has gotten much further than I was. I can now see a picture and I can cycle through channels via the TV Guide. So now I suppose I am ready to record. Will I have to turn the sat receiver to the right channel to record or can I select a series of programs to record and let i ride? Can't the IR blaster turn the channel of the sat receiver to the channel of the program or programs I select?

[chud]

if you have setup the IR blaster (for instance you are now watching Live TV and changing the channels through GBPVR using the irblaster) then you are set. scheduled recordings will have GBPVR blasting your stb to the right channel when recording commences.