Modest HTPC build, long time reader - first time poster

[mikeh49]

Me too. I hereby withdraw my previous suggestion, especially if the Kworld has a good ATSC tuner

[arnim]

I just got the Kworld card. I love newegg, they delivered it two days earlier than promised, especially nice since it's Friday... guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

To answer pastro's question, the channel range I'm looking to record is 99 and below... probably just analog cable.

With the Kworld and the 150 I'd be able to record 1 HD and 1 SD (HD/SD) but with two HVR-1600 I'd be able to record HD/SD, HD/HD and SD/SD... nice as far as flexibility goes but more costly... alll this changes if I'm able to get the Kworld to record SD signals without hickups. Then I could get another KWorld and have full flexibility for around $100 total.

I'm not too optimistic about it but I'll give it a shot... I'll report my findings. Thanks for your thoughts guys, I appreciate it.

[pastro]

I just got the Kworld card. I love newegg, they delivered it two days earlier than promised, especially nice since it's Friday... guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

To answer pastro's question, the channel range I'm looking to record is 99 and below... probably just analog cable.

Sounds like analog cable, but the definitive test is to connect a regular TV to the cable outlet. If that works, it's analog. Doesn't sound like you need a QAM card, at least for now.

alll this changes if I'm able to get the Kworld to record SD signals without hickups. Then I could get another KWorld and have full flexibility for around $100 total.

I'm not too optimistic about it but I'll give it a shot... I'll report my findings. Thanks for your thoughts guys, I appreciate it.

I think you are in for the the Kworld of Hurt to get the SD part going. Sub mentioned once that a lot of people have tried and very few have succeeded.

I was surprised to hear that the HVR1600 is a hybrid card. They state it has two tuners. If it was a true dual tuner it would have done everything you need.
Btw, I think my friend had some trouble with the Kworld remote with GBPVR. He ended up buying an MCE remote.

At any rate, good luck.

[gEd]

My main 250GB (IDE) drive has 2 partitions.

A 10GB partition for windows, gbpvr and utils.
The remainder is partitioned (R using 64K clusters and used for recordings.

I later added a 400GB (SATA) archive drive and use the VAplugin to automatically move recordings > 21 days old from R: to the archive drive. If I had a Pentium processor, I would use Zprocess (possibly) to automatically convert the files on the archive drive to xvid. But I haven;t, so I don't....

As previously described (very well), there is nothing wrong with IDE drives. Personally I think SATA connectors are a terrible invention, way too loose.

Isn't the Pentium D one of the "hot" Pentiums that produces lots of heat? I may be wrong but if it is, the cpu fan will have to run fast to keep it cool and might be noisy.

just my $0.02

[arnim]

Ouch... I think I'm in the Kworld of hurt...

I spent most of the weekend putting the hardware together for the PC (it's a brand new build) and installing Windows, etc... then last night I finally got to installing the drivers for the KWorld card and installing and configuring gbpvr.

I'm having a tough time picking up any channels OTA, but I just have a rabbit ear antenna so that may be the problem there.

As far as the SoftwareRecorder plugin goes I've had no luck. Couldn't even get it installed properly. In the dropdown for the recorder source (I think that's where it was) it says "WMD SoftwareRecorder (broken plugin pass through only)" or something like that...

I installed PowerDVD and thought that would give me an mpeg encoder/decoder to work with it but maybe not. Does anybody see an obvious solution to this issue... if not I still have a few things I want to try but thought maybe you guys had some suggestions...

[flyswatta]

ATI's Avivo is a free encoder/decoder that I've used in the past (you don't need an ATI card). I also had the "broken plugin pass through only" thing on my AverMedia card, but it worked anyway.

[pastro]

PowerDVD should have installed a decoder. You don't have any listed in the config app?

[arnim]

After booting up the machine tonight all my encoder/decoder options were in place and I had access to the settings for the SoftwareRecorder for the WDM Recording Plugin (didn't have that before). I had restarted after installing all the different encoder/decoders but I guess that last one did the trick.

I played around with the different encoders, audio was really choppy for the default setup but changed it to the AC97 audio codec (think it's using the drivers for my audio card to render audio) and all worked well.

I think the quality is pretty good, stability was a little bit of an issue as I played around with the codecs but that's not entirely surprising. I'm pretty optimistic I can find a setup that will give me a stable configuration... but only time will tell.

I was a little disappointed by the ATSC tuner, it doesn't seem to be as sensitive as the one that's built into my TV. I can only get one of the OTA HD channels as opposed to about 4 or 5 on my TV... might just need a signal amplifier or a better antenna (I am on the North side of the house and according to antennaweb the signals are comming from the south so that might be a concern).

All in all, so far so good. I don't think I'll get another one of these cards but I think I'll keep this one and look to get another hybrid HD/SD card preferably with a built in tuner, a true dual tuner HD/SD card would be nice but currently those are pricey.

Next things I'll be looking at will be antennas, setting up the remote that came with the card and then little things to max the quality/stability of the softwareRecorder and automating things like ripping DVDs, burning shows to DVDs, etc... I'm sure I'll run into a few more things before it's all said and done but I think the setup has gone better than I dared hope

If there's anybody out there with the same card I'd be happy to share my settings via screenshots or whatever, just post here or send me a PM.

Thanks for all the help guys.

[pastro]

After booting up the machine tonight all my encoder/decoder options were in place and I had access to the settings for the SoftwareRecorder for the WDM Recording Plugin (didn't have that before). I had restarted after installing all the different encoder/decoders but I guess that last one did the trick.

I played around with the different encoders, audio was really choppy for the default setup but changed it to the AC97 audio codec (think it's using the drivers for my audio card to render audio) and all worked well.

I think the quality is pretty good, stability was a little bit of an issue as I played around with the codecs but that's not entirely surprising. I'm pretty optimistic I can find a setup that will give me a stable configuration... but only time will tell.

I was a little disappointed by the ATSC tuner, it doesn't seem to be as sensitive as the one that's built into my TV. I can only get one of the OTA HD channels as opposed to about 4 or 5 on my TV... might just need a signal amplifier or a better antenna (I am on the North side of the house and according to antennaweb the signals are comming from the south so that might be a concern).

All in all, so far so good. I don't think I'll get another one of these cards but I think I'll keep this one and look to get another hybrid HD/SD card preferably with a built in tuner, a true dual tuner HD/SD card would be nice but currently those are pricey.

Next things I'll be looking at will be antennas, setting up the remote that came with the card and then little things to max the quality/stability of the softwareRecorder and automating things like ripping DVDs, burning shows to DVDs, etc... I'm sure I'll run into a few more things before it's all said and done but I think the setup has gone better than I dared hope

If there's anybody out there with the same card I'd be happy to share my settings via screenshots or whatever, just post here or send me a PM.

Thanks for all the help guys.

First off nice job getting it all to work.

I did see some complaints about the sensitivity of the ATSC tuner in the Kworld.

Adding a signal booster will probably make matters worse but that isn't always the case. If the front end amp of the kworld is really noisy, adding a good quality external amp can make things better. Usually the front end amp in a tuner is pretty darn good, but I can't speak for the Kworld. Look for low noise figure amps. If they don't list the noise figure that's probably a bad sign.

If the amp in the Kworld is decent, then it's an SNR issue. Getting a directional antenna will help quite a bit. That will provide gain without signal degradation. Probably some sort of log periodic will work ok, certainly better than the rabbit ears (dipole) that you have. putting it outside with an amp at the antenna is usually a really good solution.

There are times when an amp can really help. If you have multiple splitters or long cable runs that exceed the amps noise figure then by all means add an amp.
Good luck.

[stefan]

might just need a signal amplifier

Just remember you'll need to put the amplifier before the splitter, otherwise you'll also amplify the disturbances introduced by the splitter. Or get a combined splitter/amplifier