GB-PVR newbie unsure how to configure correctlly.

[johnnygal]

homebrewpc,

Some time ago, I played about with gb-pvr using a PCI DigiTV. I did get it working purely as a recording platform i.e. no mediaMVP. I REALLY did like the TV listings webpages and the ease with which you can schedule recordings by simply clicking on the program.

However, I stopped using it as with the BDA drivers, I found that the recordings contained a lot of skips/jumps and artefacts. I was also getting AV sync problems when demuxing the mpg prior to encoding to DivX. (This works fine when recording with the Nebula non-BDA drivers)

You seem to be quite far along getting yours configured i.e. replacing the Nebula drivers with their BDA drivers. You also have got a MUX installed. Can I suggest though you have it installed ok using the MUXChecker (from memory I believe it's on the windows start menu in the GB-PVR program group). This will confirm that GB-PVR is happy it can see the MUX. Perhaps try some more Muxes, maybe the one you have doesn't work with USB device?

When I used GB-PVR, I never had to any tweaking of bda.ini files, I simply set the recording device as a BDA Capture device and it worked from there.


(I used, and still do!, the Birtles XMLTV grabber - I found this was the most flexible and easy to use, allowing me to combine channels from RadioTimes with Radio channel listings from bleb.org)

Sorry I can't suggest much more than the Muxes, I have not used gb-pvr for probably getting on for a year. If I was still "current" on it, I may be able to have some more ideas.

Good luck,
John

[homebrewpc]

homebrewpc,

Some time ago, I played about with gb-pvr using a PCI DigiTV. I did get it working purely as a recording platform i.e. no mediaMVP. I REALLY did like the TV listings webpages and the ease with which you can schedule recordings by simply clicking on the program.

However, I stopped using it as with the BDA drivers, I found that the recordings contained a lot of skips/jumps and artefacts. I was also getting AV sync problems when demuxing the mpg prior to encoding to DivX. (This works fine when recording with the Nebula non-BDA drivers)

You seem to be quite far along getting yours configured i.e. replacing the Nebula drivers with their BDA drivers. You also have got a MUX installed. Can I suggest though you have it installed ok using the MUXChecker (from memory I believe it's on the windows start menu in the GB-PVR program group). This will confirm that GB-PVR is happy it can see the MUX. Perhaps try some more Muxes, maybe the one you have doesn't work with USB device?

When I used GB-PVR, I never had to any tweaking of bda.ini files, I simply set the recording device as a BDA Capture device and it worked from there.


(I used, and still do!, the Birtles XMLTV grabber - I found this was the most flexible and easy to use, allowing me to combine channels from RadioTimes with Radio channel listings from bleb.org)

Sorry I can't suggest much more than the Muxes, I have not used gb-pvr for probably getting on for a year. If I was still "current" on it, I may be able to have some more ideas.

Good luck,
John

Hi, Thank you for your reply. I'd not realised that GB-PVR could be used with a DigiTV device using non BDA drivers (if you could advise how to go about doing this that'd be appreciated).

Here's what Muxchecker produces:
(Think that this is alright but as no channels can be found could you please advise what other Muxes should be tried?).

GB-PVR has detected the following multiplex filters on your machine:

Found: CyberLink MPEG Muxer
FILE: C:\WINDOWS\system32\MpgMux.ax
VERSION: 5.0.1307

Found: CyberLink MPEG Muxer
FILE: C:\WINDOWS\system32\MpgMux.ax
VERSION: 5.0.1307



If you're running WinXP SP1 or higher, you will also be able to use the built-in DVR-MS mux filter

Birtles XMLTV grabber is brilliant IMHO. Not sure how to go about getting this configured to capture EPG automatically though. Need to get DigiTV to receive channels via GB-PVR first I guess.

Thank you :-).

[johnnygal]

To use GB-PVR and DigiTV card, you must use the BDA drivers. (What I was saying about the non-BDA drivers was that when I use these and the nebula DigiTV program for recordings, the recordings are fine)

Sounds like your Mux is installed ok then. I wonder why it listed it twice though?

I have previously used these:
Cyberlink versions 5.0.1307 and 5.0.0813
ShowShifter 3.12.0.2945

I wonder if the USB filter name is correct in bda.ini. It sounds like you might be one of the first USB DigiTV users trying to get gb-pvr working with the recently issued BDA drivers from Nebula. Maybe sub can tell you how to find out the name of the filters - (find them in Device Manager?). You can see that the PCI names changed recently - see post: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ght=digitv

As for the Birtles grabber, once you have configured it using the GUI, there is a command line executable (XmltvConsole) that you can put on to a scheduled task to grab the listings.

[homebrewpc]

To use GB-PVR and DigiTV card, you must use the BDA drivers. (What I was saying about the non-BDA drivers was that when I use these and the nebula DigiTV program for recordings, the recordings are fine)

Sounds like your Mux is installed ok then. I wonder why it listed it twice though?

I have previously used these:
Cyberlink versions 5.0.1307 and 5.0.0813
ShowShifter 3.12.0.2945

I wonder if the USB filter name is correct in bda.ini. It sounds like you might be one of the first USB DigiTV users trying to get gb-pvr working with the recently issued BDA drivers from Nebula. Maybe sub can tell you how to find out the name of the filters - (find them in Device Manager?). You can see that the PCI names changed recently - see post: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ght=digitv

As for the Birtles grabber, once you have configured it using the GUI, there is a command line executable (XmltvConsole) that you can put on to a scheduled task to grab the listings.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I was confused as to why there are two Cyberlink Mux entries. Perhaps I need to unregister one of them?.

I've tried to download Showshifter but this does not seem to be a free download anymore since the company has changed ownership (from what I can gather on their web-site ).

I'd used GraphEdit to enter the lines on bda.ini however I am not convinced that I've entered the lines correctly. I've changed this again this morning from....

[DigiTV USB]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Nebula DigiTV USB BDA Filter
FILTER_CAPTURE=Nebula DigiTV USB BDA Filter
PIN_TUNER_IN=Antenna In
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=Input0
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

To....

[DigiTV USB]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Nebula DigiTV USB BDA Filter
FILTER_CAPTURE=Nebula DigiTV USB BDA Filter
PIN_TUNER_IN=Antenna In
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

Clutching straws really as not sure what's correct and is not where editing bda.ini are concerned. If the Filter_Tuner and/or Filter_Capture names are changed from the one's mentioned an error message pops up that say's that my DigiTV is not detected so I guess that these two lines are correct. As for the other lines I am not sure.

I'm reasonably happy that the BDA drivers are correctly installed as I've managed to get MP to work, although the video playback is very erratic.
Perhaps this is because I'm using a Via EPIA M10000, 512Mb DDR, WinXP SP2 as opposed to a more powerful PC I'm not sureDon't want to use MP but GB-PVR.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you .

[homebrewpc]

To use GB-PVR and DigiTV card, you must use the BDA drivers. (What I was saying about the non-BDA drivers was that when I use these and the nebula DigiTV program for recordings, the recordings are fine)

Sounds like your Mux is installed ok then. I wonder why it listed it twice though?

I have previously used these:
Cyberlink versions 5.0.1307 and 5.0.0813
ShowShifter 3.12.0.2945

I wonder if the USB filter name is correct in bda.ini. It sounds like you might be one of the first USB DigiTV users trying to get gb-pvr working with the recently issued BDA drivers from Nebula. Maybe sub can tell you how to find out the name of the filters - (find them in Device Manager?). You can see that the PCI names changed recently - see post: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ght=digitv

As for the Birtles grabber, once you have configured it using the GUI, there is a command line executable (XmltvConsole) that you can put on to a scheduled task to grab the listings.

Hi,

Wondering whether or not no channels are found because I've not configured the EPG correctly?. Could you please be kind enough to explain exactly how you went about configuring the Birties grabber and configuring in GB-PVR set-up?. The channels that were selected in Birties grabber appear in GB-PVR set-up (does the check-box need to be checked against each of them (tried to find channels with and without them being checked)?.



As for the Birtles grabber, once you have configured it using the GUI, there is a command line executable (XmltvConsole) that you can put on to a scheduled task to grab the listings.

Thank you .

[stefan]

I believe gbpvr should find the channels when you do "map channels" (when it scans for channels, I mean) regardless of whether you have a valid EPG or not. If all you got is "signal strength 0", then you either have a) a bad signal from your antenna or b) a broken card (or broken/bad installed driver).
Is there any way you can rule out either of these? Can you receive DVB signals from your antenna? Do you have a set top box that you can validate that with? Or even better, can you get the card to work with nebula's native program instead of gbpvr? Just to make sure the card is not faulty...

[sub]

Can you do a channel scan, then zip and attach your logs?

[homebrewpc]

I believe gbpvr should find the channels when you do "map channels" (when it scans for channels, I mean) regardless of whether you have a valid EPG or not. If all you got is "signal strength 0", then you either have a) a bad signal from your antenna or b) a broken card (or broken/bad installed driver).
Is there any way you can rule out either of these? Can you receive DVB signals from your antenna? Do you have a set top box that you can validate that with? Or even better, can you get the card to work with nebula's native program instead of gbpvr? Just to make sure the card is not faulty...

Hi Stefan, Thank you for your reply. I can confirm that my Nebula USB DVB-T Receiver works with the Nebula BDA software (trial version) that i'd downloaded and also with MP using BDA drivers.

I'm not convinced that I've configured the bda.ini file correctly. If you can give some feedback on this that'd be appreciated.

[homebrewpc]

Can you do a channel scan, then zip and attach your logs?

Hello Sub, Thank you for your reply. I shall zip and attach what I think are the logs. Please confirm that these are the files that appear as text files. I've read the 'posting support questions' thread but am not 100% on this.

[sub]

Do a scan then zip and attach config.exe.log and config.exe-native.log.