Compro Vista TH850e - Hong Kong

[jksmurf]

LOL on the remote front, with the MVP and the PCH I have two extra remotes, plus the PVR-150 comes with one too, unless you get the el-cheapo version, the one without it. That's what I did, one PVR150 card with a remote, one without. If you are limited by slots on your PC, get the PVR-500. You still need to connect the second input cable though.

As far as quality goes, for me FTA via the card vs. direct to TV does seem to be slightly lower Quality even with the Hauppauage Card and high quality settings in GBPVR. You might get small improvements using decoders and tweaking things a bit, but it's more the convenience of having a guide, having recordings manageable, and COMSKIP (love that) for me. While I watch on my TV via an MVP (now a PCH) mostly and the MVP is "OK" the PC screen is only slightly better.

TBH I don't know why it's not as good as direct to TV and I am not convinced you'll get great results with another card (let me know if you do!) but the Haupp is a MPEG HARDWARE ENCODER card that GBPVR works well with.

As opposed to FTA, NowBB is pretty good as (my understanding) is that the signal is already mpeg2 so the card just acts as a pass-thru, doesn't record the analog signal like the FTA signal.

hth

k.

[whatever999]

Ha, yeah those damn remotes. They are like a virus, and now everything comes with em! Drives me nuts...

Thanks for the feedback on the quality issue I am seeing. I can live with the drop in quality if I have to, but I will be tweaking and fiddling to get the best I can, so will keep you posted on the results.

Totally agree on the pro's and cons tho...the nowBB TV Guide is the WORST! I recently got a new set top box when the old one mysteriously stopped working and now the whole guide is ORANGE! Seeing that early morning after a few too many the night before is not nice!

What is COMSKIP?

I am not limited by slots in the machine, but I am limited on power, I opted for a clean green Antec 350w PSU and by my calculations I am running pretty close to the wire, just hope Antec claim of 350w is true!

To be honest with you I am a bit lost when i comes to TV Cards (and the whole TV DMB-TH / Cable / BB / HD etc the abbreviations seem endless).

Are both the HP cards you mentioned digital - sorry if that is a dumb question!

cheers

Whatever

[jksmurf]

... I will be tweaking and fiddling to get the best I can, so will keep you posted on the results.

Cool.

... ..and now the whole guide is ORANGE! Seeing that early morning after a few too many the night before is not nice!.

Yeah... fugly.

What is COMSKIP?.

Ahhh... grasshopper! Almost the raison d'etre for GBPVR as far as I am concerned ... It's an ad skipper or trimmer. What it does is use a bunch of recognition algorithms to recognise frames like ones with show logos, black frames between ads and shows etc to work out where ads are and then it stores a file with the frame numbers of those ad breaks. When you play a recorded show (it can even do it while recording on Time delay, to a certain extent) it then skips the ads so you just get to see the show and don't even have to FFW. It is awesome, free and works automatically with GBPVR. Give us a shout if you need help with setup I can send you my config.

To be honest with you I am a bit lost when i comes to TV Cards (and the whole TV DMB-TH / Cable / BB / HD etc the abbreviations seem endless). Are both the HP cards you mentioned digital - sorry if that is a dumb question!

There are no dumb Q's... It took me a while to get my head around all this stuff (still haven't fully, but it's cool when it all works). DMB-TH is the HK+China standard for Digital TV. Hauppage do make a DMB-TH digital device, but NO, the PVR-150 and PVR-500 are both purely analog hardware encoders. Decoding (essentially playback) is done by your PC (or an MVP / PCH).

k.

[whatever999]

Ah...so much to learn...

My gut would tell me a digital card would be a better option, but does that mean restrictions in watching the analogue TV signal (for Pearl etc)...

(Scratching head) this is all so confusing...

I am out at Tuen Mun (way out by Yuen Long), would you know if I can get the DMB-TH signal out in th boonies...(how is it possible that I dont know this already!)

ComSkip sounds like a great bit of SW! but I definitely have to get my TV Card issues figured out before I jump into it, but I will get back to you for your ini files for sure!

Thanks for all the guidance, this is helping a lot!

Cheers

Whatever

[jksmurf]

Welcome. It's a nice system when it's all set up with plugins and all (I use Xrecord & Moviewizard but not much else).

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My gut would tell me a digital card would be a better option, but does that mean restrictions in watching the analogue TV signal (for Pearl etc)...

Well, it would be ... but AFAIK, ATV & TVB Pearl (English) are non-existent or only available certain hours in the Digital Stream, so a Digital device is useless. You'd have to visit their web-sites to check though. These digital channels are also available via NowBB btw if you really want them, but you have to pay vs. digital FTA and again Chinese only (unless you can understand Chinese ... I can't!)

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I am out at Tuen Mun (way out by Yuen Long), would you know if I can get the DMB-TH signal out in the boonies...(how is it possible that I don't know this already!)

Maybe ....! I know where it is, my workplace was in Kam Tin / Pat Heung for a few years.

http://app1.ofta.gov.hk/apps/dtt/content...ge=english House Specifc Coverage
http://www.digitaltv.gov.hk/general/pdf/coverage.pdf General

Cheers,

k.