Sky TV recording advice needed please

[scobb]

My apologies if this has been asked before, but here goes:

I'm running a high-end PC, with XP Pro, a Hauppauge PVR-500 and gbpvr. The basic operation of my PVR setup is working perfectly, but I have a problem someone might be able to suggest a solution to.

MY PVR PC is located in a study/office about 50M from my Sky Digital decoder and the TV aerial primary feed in my living room. The Sky decoder can only be controlled via the Sky remote control. My current setup "pushes" the TV signal back out from both the terrestrial channels and the Sky decoder (via the VHF/UHF frequency you can tune into to receive Sky) to aerial outlets around the house, one of which is close to my computer. So I get a really good quality signal into my Hauppauge card for all terrestrial channels and whatever Sky channel happens to be selected in the living room.

My problem is I have no idea how to get the gbpvr software to scan all the Sky digital channels from the computer and having done that, how to select and record a particular Sky channel via the gbpvr TV Guide. Currently, I have tuned the gbpvr software to the same frequency for every Sky channel and have to manually remember to select the correct channel on the decoder. This is not good, especially if you want to record more than one Sky channel overnight for example .

I suppose I could get a second Sky decoder installed close to the computer, but this is an expesive option and will not be popular with my wife . I'm hoping there is a simpler solution out there that I'm missing. Moving my computer down to the living room is also not an acceptable solution with my other half...

I don't know if I've explained this very well, but hopefully you can follow my ramblings and somebody might have a suggestion for my problem.

Thanks,

Simon

[martint123]

I have a similar setup - although UK Sky. I have RF2 output from the sky box coming to my shack about 50m of cable away. RF2 has a facility not mentioned in my manual of being able to change channels by using a remote extender so long as the coax is uninterrupted. The one I use is a Labgear digi-eye and it works a treat. You need an IRBlaster on your PC/TV card to change the channel though (I'm not sure if the pvr500 has one).
At this point you set gbpvr up with the sky channels by importing them from your EPG source and sadly have then to manually set the Sky channel number in config, although you onlky have to do this the first time. It may be such that your epg source has the channel numbers inside, but mine doesn't.

have fun
Martin

[psycik]

I think you'd probably find most of the guys here running sky would have the sky box connected to the tuner card via av cables, or svideo. Then depending on your system would have some sort of infrared transmitter (not sure if you can talk directly to the sky boxes via rs-232 port) to change the channels on the sky box.

Channel listings for NZ you would need some sort of listings grabber, xmltvnz is about the best over here (http://www.reven.co.nz) and from that listing you would be able to map a gbpvr channel to a sky channel.

Have a look in the wiki site http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quick...QuickStart

[martint123]

I went for the RF method because 50 to 80m of scart cable is unwieldy and expensive. Also the IR remotes can go back down the same coax cable to the undocumented RF2 channel changer. Plus is was easier picking up the TV antenna via the sky box.

[scobb]

Thanks for the advice. I'm already using xmltvnz, which works a treat, including tuning into Sky. Unfortunately, this does not solve my basic problem of controlling my Sky decoder and tuning individually into all of the Sky digital channels. My pvr500 came with an MCE remote and a USB infra red receiver with what looks like two much smaller IR devices that plug into the back of the larger IR receiver. I can find no information on what these are for, how you would use them etc. Also, I've not yet managed to get the remote control to control the gbpvr application, but I know the remote/IR receiver is basically working because when I press numeric buttons on the remote, the numbers appear on the screen!

Does anyone have any suggestions on any of the above?

Thanks again,

Simon

[ricklous]

the smaller IR devices that come out of the big part of the IR receiver are IR Blasters, ie they are for transmitting infared signals as opposed to receiving them.

so what you have in the MCE remote is the large bit (called a beanbag) for receiving IR from the remote control and controlling your PC, and two IR transmitters (called IR blasters or sometimes IR buds) for allowing your PC to control something else.

the 'Something else' in your case would be your sky box.

If you have a PVR500 then i imagine the setup you would need would be as follows:

tuner one on the PVR500 tuned to your analogue channels.

tuner two being fed by the signal from your sky box.

In your config, if your sky is coming to the PVR via RF, then you need to go to your direct recording plugin>settings button, and set 'Source' to 'fixed channel, external tuner' and enter the RF frequency of your sky feed into the 'constant Channel' value. then load your sky channels into this tuners EPG.

This tells GBPVR that whenever you select a Sky channel, it tunes to tuner 2 and sets the frequency at whatever the sky box outputs at.

the next step is getting your GBPVR to change the channels of your sky box for you. this is done either with the IR buds on the MCE remote or the other methods mentioned here. if your sky box is within the distance your IR buds stretch, then you're in luck as it shouldnt cost any more cash, but if it isnt i imagine martin123s method would be best for you as that sounds like it might be possible to use the RF network you have already through your house...
the wiki has a good page on explaining your options...

[onestar]

Personally I have the sky box and computer in the same room (remote), and use a IR transmitter to change the sky box using the remote, and this redrat to have the computer change the skybox