Connecting Digital Cable Box through FireWire

[dark_half]

Yes that is why in the vlc parameters you specify "mux=ps". I verified this last night by capturing with VLC and was able to play back in GBPVR. I just need to get the external recording plugin to launch VLC in the background so I can just use GBPVR. I only got it to work once or twice the other day and just haven't had the chance to mess with it. My wife really hates when I start to reconfigure GBPVR when she wants to watch TV. I can seem to get the kids and her off of it anymore.

[Ted the Penguin]

Yes that is why in the vlc parameters you specify "mux=ps". I verified this last night by capturing with VLC and was able to play back in GBPVR. I just need to get the external recording plugin to launch VLC in the background so I can just use GBPVR. I only got it to work once or twice the other day and just haven't had the chance to mess with it. My wife really hates when I start to reconfigure GBPVR when she wants to watch TV. I can seem to get the kids and her off of it anymore.

you need another HTPC, or throw a capture card in your "dev" machine

[wtg]

Wow... I'm making good progress here.

I downloaded and installed the Motorola drivers, plugged in a firewire cable and bingo!, I'm capturing HD content - both 720p and 1080i. It just blows me away that we're able to do this without a capture card.

I have the NVidia Pure Video decoder and it plays back the .ts content in WMP and almost in gbpvr. GBPVR creates a valid graph in VMR mode and I get video, but no sound. When I play the GBPVR graph in graphedt I get both sound and video. I'm hoping sub will be able to help because it's so close.

Also, I downloaded the drivers for changing channels on the command line found here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthrea...did=403695. It too works very well so I'll be able to control the STB completely via the fireware cable. How cool is that?

Next step is the Software Recorder plugin. Dark Half, I'd love some more details on exactly what you've done so far. It sounds like you're almost there. I won't be able to continue my play until later this evening (too much Christmas shopping to do) but I can't wait. So far it's been no more difficult than simply downloading a couple drivers.

[Ted the Penguin]

wow if my cable provider will give me a motorola 6412 I am definitely going to upgrade to it, since I can actually capture shows in HD... excited

[dark_half]

All I am doing at this time is have the External Recording plugin launch vlc in the backgroung to capture the stream using this parameter

Code:

dshow://:dshow-vdev="Motorola AV/C Tuner Device":dshow-adev="":dshow-size="":no-dshow-config:no-dshow-tuner :sout=#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ps,url="{fullname}"}}

I set up a capture source using the external recording plugin and pointed the start recording and start preview to vlc with the above parameters. The problem I was having was that this would work the first time but any attempts after that failed requiring the computer to be restarted. I could not find a graceful way to stop vlc. I was just trying to use tskill. I can recreate the same problem from within vlc. If I start vlc, open capture device, direct show, under video device do a refresh and the select Motorola tuner(do not try to adjust any other settings this caused vlc to crash), and then hit ok it plays. If I stop it using the vlc gui I can start playing the stream as many times as I want with no problem. However if I just exit vlc without stopping I can not start another stream until I reboot.

I have not researched it much but it was not quickly clear to me how to gracefully stop vlc from a commandline.

[shuot]

Yes that is why in the vlc parameters you specify "mux=ps". I verified this last night by capturing with VLC and was able to play back in GBPVR. I just need to get the external recording plugin to launch VLC in the background so I can just use GBPVR.

. . . it's very interesting !

On my side, I have a Scientific Atlanta decoder. I suppose it should be very similar.

I'll also try on my side.

Bye!
Syl!

[carpeVideo]

Where have you guys been?? firewire capture/channel change for STB's has been around for a while, unfortunately, Tony isn't in a place where he can use (unless he has a satellite STB) it so not much support on that end, (Can't blame him)

To give you a summary of what I have seen:

Firewire capture from STB's will only give you unencrypted channels, usually the locals, shopping channels and MTV (at least on Comcast).

Gallm has the best support for Windows firewire capture that I have seen but it gets confused sometimes scheduling between that and SD. Plus setting up the correct muxers etc. can be a bit of a puzzle. I had one set up where I used firewire for unencrypted HD and then used my Fusion Gold to capture s-video for the encrypted channels (not even using its HD capabilities) and it worked but tended to explode on occasion so I gave up there.

Someone has made a Beyond TV plugin that will let you schedule firewire recordings via VLC, or actually insert a recording command into the DVICO schedule dbase so you can use QAM rather than firewire. Might be able to do something similar with GBPVR but native support would be nicer.

MythTV can do it all directly (including direct QAM support for HD Cards or firewire capture), but I have some many issues with sound card drivers etc. that I gave up on Linux.

To help those who read this and are about to go through much pain figuring this out you need to grab firestb.msi and to install on an XP rather than MCE requires:
MSIEXEC /i firestb.msi IDENT=0

(http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/firewire/readme.htm)

You can use its channel changer with s-video capture from some STB for the encrypted channels. It works with the DCT6200 and many satellite STBs as well.

Everything I have read on QAM says that Microsoft has purposely left out support in the BDA drivers for XP and will change that with Vista - what I wonder is can you grab those drivers and put them on an XP machine, like you do with some MCE drivers. Only time and someone with more skill than me will tell :0)

[wtg]

Good question... I can't believe I've missed this.

I see I'm going to have to do some playing to get this work within GB-PVR. VLC is very new to me, as is the software recorder plugin which has very little documentation. I'm having playback issues within GBPVR as well, I think related to the AC3 audio. But being able to capture at all is a nice surprise and the picture quality is stunning, so I'll definitely be investing some time over the next few days to see if I can automate it.

Does anyone know how to use the CapDVHS utility from the command line? It works so nicely but needs gui input. Shame...

[dark_half]

I stayed up late last night playing with it again. I get it to work the first time every time but will not capture a second show if I change channels or stop timeshift and try to go back in. Vlc seems to just hang requiring a reboot. I would be curious when and if someone else tries if they get the same result. It is so very close but I can not get it to work. Someone with more experience with vlc and how to control it will have to see if they can figure it out.

I know this has been around for a while and have been using it for channel changing for a while. I can capture manual fine but only started trying the other day to find a way for it to work from GBPVR.

VLC is very new to me, as is the software recorder plugin which has very little documentation.

I have not tried the software encoder have you got anywhere with this.

[carpeVideo]

Here are to other sources of interest

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthrea...did=403695

http://www.htpcnews.com/forums/index.php...opic=10499

http://home.comcast.net/~brzez2/dctrecord.html



Seems that people don' t use VLC to record but capDVHS, the 3rd link is a command line recorder for DCT STB's

I haven't got it to work yet, but it seems you might be able to create a cmd file and use the external changing capability to kick off the job, might be the easiest way to do this,