Live TV and TV Guide don't work in Windows 7

[colinnwn]

So I'm trying to do a fresh install of GB-PVR on a fresh install of Win7-32 with a HVR-2250 tuner on ClearQAM, and I've been having a lot of problems. I feel a little stupid at this point.

I have added one of the HVR-2250 digital tuners, successfully downloaded my SchedulesDirect listing, successfully scanned and found a crap ton of channels (most of which don't work, even the ones marked as in the clear), mapped a few physical channels that do work in the preview pane to the SD listings, and enabled those channels.

After closing the config utility, when I go to PVRX2 and click on "TV Guide" or "Live TV", nothing happens. All the other options seem to work. In the logs, it appears to say I have no channels set up, but I think I have done everything necessary to activate them.

I've checked the permissions for gbpvr.db3 and config.xml, even though since this isn't a restore that shouldn't be an issue. Both files show that the user GB-PVR runs in to have full permissions on these 2 files. TV works fine in Windows Media Center. I haven't disabled UAC yet because this problem didn't seem related to the other issues where UAC possibly caused problems. But I can if someone thinks that would be valuable.

I've searched the forums to get this far quite a bit. Now I'm out of ideas and leaving my parents house in about 6 hours, not to be back for several weeks. If anyone could throw me a bone, I'd appreciate it.

This is much lower priority, but when I tried to set up the analog section of this card, I experienced the same problem of the frontend not working. I deleted it to be sure that wasn't causing a problem. But I noticed the analog section asked what input to record and listed 1-8. I haven't figured out a way to tell which 2 of 8 inputs are correct for the analog part of the card, since there is no preview pane in analog setup. Does anyone know which inputs I should be using for analog?

[sub]

Try deleting the hidden "c:\users\<your account>\appdata\local\virtualstore\program files\devnz" directory.

[blaster556]

Try deleting the hidden "c:\users\<your account>\appdata\local\virtualstore\program files\devnz" directory.

This problem seems to go back 18-24 months. Why is this not part of the Survival Guide?

Better yet, why hasn't it been fixed yet?

[sub]

It is fixed for the next release.

[colinnwn]

Damn, I saw a thread with that in it I think, and looked for the folder, but couldn't find it, so guessed it wasn't a problem anymore.

I forgot by default Windows doesn't show hidden files at all, and I have to enable that every time I install Win.

Now the TV Guide is saying "no show details" for the channels I did enable (and seemed to download guide data for) and "Live TV" has no sound. I'm not finished trying to resolve those on my own. I've tried every volume setting I could think in Windows. Media Player works fine. I'm suspicious Time-Warner might be doing something to screw with PVR users since there are 2 HD streams, and at least 2 SD streams for every broadcast channel they offer in the clear. I haven't tried all the channels yet to see if they all have this problem, or if it is a decoder, or device mis-setting.

[sub]

Now the TV Guide is saying "no show details" for the channels I did enable (and seemed to download guide data for)

Hit 'update epg' in the config app, then post the config.exe.log and I'll take a look.

and "Live TV" has no sound.

This is most likely related to the AC3 audio decoder you're using. What one do you have have selected in the config app?`

[colinnwn]

I swear I have done an "epg update" 2 other times besides the initial setup, and nothing came into the TV guide screen. But this time when I did it, of course it worked.

For AC3 decoder I have only 2 options, "system default" and "Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder." I just tried both again, and neither produced any sound. I'm about to have to storm out of here. But I may try to set up VNC access and continue working on it for the next couple weeks till I come back.

Thanks for the help.

[sub]

For AC3 decoder I have only 2 options, "system default" and "Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder."

The 'system default' on your machine is likely to be 'Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder', so thats likely the only decoder you've tried. Unfortunately that decoder wont give AC3 outside of Microsoft apps. You'll need to install another AC3 decoder, like AC3Filter.

[colinnwn]

And that fixed it.

I'm still here because my flight got really delayed due to weather tonight, so I decided to go early tomorrow instead. We'll see how much I can get fixed up tonight, maybe try to get the eGreat installed.

Took me a while to find AC3Filter installation file because their homepage is down. Looks like Drupal crashed their database. I was dubious of downloading from a non-official site. But I finally found a deep-link through google that was still up, and it had a link to download the installation file from the official site.

Is this stuff documented somewhere I missed? I really tried to do this on my own using the forums and wiki. I may write a step by step installation guide specific to a fresh Win 7 and GB-PVR install. A lot of the stuff I found wasn't quite complete, probably because users had upgraded several times, and not all required steps and files were listed because they had been done long ago and forgotten.

I even tried to edit the wiki a little several weeks ago, but I think it said something about me not having permissions.

Last things I am working on now are getting the analog portion of the card working, mapping the ridiculous number of digital channels (many non-functioning) that the scan found, and figuring out why occasionally I get a message in the frontend that the signal strength is too low.

I live in a neighborhood built in 1985, so the infrastructure is fairly new. The cable company buried me a new line from the neighborhood box to the house last year. I rewired my house 5 years ago with all RG-6QS, eliminating every extra connection I could. The wiring comes in the house and splits to the cable modem, and then to a 4 port high quality digital cable signal amplifier. The run to the HVR-2250 comes straight from one of those amplified ports. Last year the cable guy put the modem splitter before the amp rather than after, because he said the amp output was too hot. So I have a hard time believing the signal strength is too low for the HVR.

In the digital mapper app, I have a suggestion. It seems the channels are listed in the left table by the hidden channel number, but aren't sortable by EPG channel name. When you have over 100 possible channels, this makes mapping from the preview screen and preview table on the right, to the physical channel table on the left, very tedious. And since I don't know what channels are receivable, because most of the clearQAM marked channels really don't come in, mapping right to left is easiest. It'd be nice if the left table was sorted by EPG channel name by default instead, or that it was possible to resort this way.

[whurlston]

Contact blader_se for access to the wiki but you may want to also coordinate with steeb. He's been working on redoing a lot of the wiki offsite. Also, SystemShark and I wrote a few guides that can be found at http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...BPVR-1.4.7 but there may be some things in them that we missed simply because they are second nature to us at this point. Feel free to add anything to them that you think might me helpful to newcomers.