PVT 150/Media MVP/Telewest Cable

[bounce]

Hi there,
First post and it's a long one and probably has a few noob questions but I would like some advice on a set-up.

I've got two PCs, Telewest Cable TV and Broadband internet and a router. What I want to do is use the fast PC as a PVR. I was thinking of getting a PVR 150 and a Media MVP box to connect to the home network for playback. I also want to play TV shows downloaded from the internet (DivX, XviD).

I don't need the TV Out of the PVR 350 as I would use the MVP and also I've got TV-Out on my video card so the PVR 150 looks ideal.

I've currently got the Telewest box hooked up to the TV (RGB Scart) and I've got the RF output combined with an ariel input piped to other TVs in the house so I can watch channels 1-4 and channel 6 has the current cable channel on it.

PCs in different room from TV.

Here come the questions...

1. I presume the PVR 150 will tune itself to pick up channels 1-6 from the RF feed, channel 6 being the cable. If I'm going to record, do I need something like a redeye serial to get GBPVR to switch channels on the cable box (Pace 1000). Can this be set up so that recording channels 1-4 switches the PVR to channel 1-4 but recording a cable channel switches the PVR 150 to channel 6 AND sends the telewest channel ID (e.g. 120) to the cable box?

2. Does the GBPVR software for the MVP allow DivX and XviD files to be played on the MVP like the beta Hauppauge software?

3. Some of the AVIs I've got are PAL and some are NTSC. Can the MVP handle this? Is there a way to switch the MVP output from GBPVR?

4. Can the recordings in GBPVR be controlled from the MVP using the remote if I install the GBPVR support for MVP i.e. can you browse the TV Guide on the MVP and set up a recording?

Thanks in advance for your help and patience.
Cheers

[sub]

1) yes
2) yes, but it hasn't had support for this long and a couple of people seem to have problems. It's much better at playing MPEG2 that DivX/XViD.
3) I've not actively tested both PAL and NTSC on my MVP, but I think it'll work and just play in its original format. It doesnt convert NTSC to PAL or anything like that.
4) Yes

[SimonP]

Some other notes (from someone in a similar position)

1) Yes, although you'd be far better using a composite video feed from the PACE box to your PVR card as the difference in quality is dramatic.

3) There is a problem here. I have a lot of music videos, some of which are NTSC although I'm in England (PAL). The PAL videos play fine, the NTSC vids are smaller and the MVP box doesn't make any attempt at resizing them so there's a lot of black space. It works, but I find it very annoying and there doesn't appear to be anything we can do about it.

Simon.

[bounce]

1) Yes, although you'd be far better using a composite video feed from the PACE box to your PVR card as the difference in quality is dramatic.

Simon,
I agree that the composite feed is the way to go. I'm not currently using the VCR scart output on the TW box as my (ancient) VCR doesn't have a scart input so this connection is free to use for the PVR 150.

What cable do you use? I believe that the PVR 150 has an S-Video input so do you use a Scart -> S-Video cable or do you use Scart -> 3 RCA then 3 RCA -> S-Video?

Thanks in advance
Bounce

[Ant]

Re. point 1: I have recently set-up a 150 with a Pace NTL box, and had no success with the IR blaster that comes as part of the 150 (non-MCE) package. You may have more success with it, as I think your Pace box uses a different type of IR commands (IRDA) to mine. I ended up buying the redremote serial and am very happy with it: under £30 including P+P, easy to pay online, ordered Thursday evening, arrived in the post Saturday morning. Its well made, easy to set up, and supports both IR protocol types, so should still work if your box gets upgraded to a different model.

My cable box feeds the PVR via a SCART to 3xphono (is the the same as RCA cable). The yellow phone connector plugs into the back of the PVR, which doesn't have a S-video connector on my model. The sound input is a single 3.5mm "Walkman-style" socket, so you'd need a convertor to convert the two phono audio cables to a single 3.5mm plug, i.e. 2x phono female to 1x 3.5mm male. I didn't have one of those, but did have a 3.5mm male to 2 x phono male cable from Argos, which I plugged into the separate phono outputs on the cable box. Argos is a good bet in the UK I reckon for the cables etc you need, should be able to sort yourself out for £10-20 max. The overall result of all this is good quality video and sound anyway!

[SimonP]

What cable do you use? I believe that the PVR 150 has an S-Video input so do you use a Scart -> S-Video cable or do you use Scart -> 3 RCA then 3 RCA -> S-Video?

The PACE boxes don't output S-Video so you have to use composite. You can get a SCART to 3 RCA connectors plus an adaptor from Maplin (or cut off the two audio plugs and solder onto a 3.5mm stereo jack as I did); remember to get one that outputs from the SCART though, either that or a switchable in/out cable.

[dougt1968]

ANT,
Could you tell me where you bought the redremote serial from
many thanks

[Ant]

http://www.redremote.co.uk/serial/

Ant