Hardware used

[sub]

should i have to use the tuning assistant?

No. With a digital card you should create a capture source, set the recording source to the 'BDA Recording Plugin' and select your card. Next setup the EPG, then click the 'Map digital channels to EPG channels. It'll then scan for channels.

You need to have the Nebula BDA drivers installed, not the WDM drivers.

[Itchy]

yea thats how i had it setup but for some reason it wouldnt connect the channels, i know that might not make any sense, at least i know i was doing it right will try again tomorrow if only i had a decent ariel in this room

have bda drivers installed - tis a shame that the nebula software doesnt work with them

thanks for the reply

[Itchy]

back to the origional topic

everyone elses specs seem fairly high, ive read alot of reviews that state you dont need the high processing power for a straightforward pvr machine, i dont want to be doing any gaming etc on this machine, will a board like the via epia sp or review here be good enough?

edit: deliberate mistake with the links

[sub]

They're a bit on the slow side, but a few people are managing to use them.

I usually recommend a 1GHz PIII class CPU or above. These CPUs are about the equivalent of a 600 - 700MHz PIII.

[Zato]

back to the origional topic

everyone elses specs seem fairly high, ive read alot of reviews that state you dont need the high processing power for a straightforward pvr machine, i dont want to be doing any gaming etc on this machine, will a board like the via epia sp or review here be good enough?

If just doing recording, then it doesn't take much.. especially with a hardware encoding capture card (ex: PVR150).

The area where you'll start having issues with a slower machine is on video playback... unless you have a hardware video decoder, which I didn't find any worthwhile options for GBPVR. I looked into getting a Sigma XCard, but Sub and others don't recommend it. The PVR350 seems to have some major issues.

EDIT: I see that board has an integrated hardware video decoder... not sure something like that is usable if the software (GBPVR) doesn't support it.

[herbs]

A user set up a wiki for this see http://myhtpc.ljusberg.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php

[rowle1jt]

I wouldn't really want to run GB-PVR on anything much slower than I have in my signature, you will certainly want loads of RAM on EPIA board.

Anyone ever run GB-PVR on an AMD Geode? Link

[elite]

back to the origional topic

everyone elses specs seem fairly high, ive read alot of reviews that state you dont need the high processing power for a straightforward pvr machine, i dont want to be doing any gaming etc on this machine, will a board like the via epia sp or review here be good enough?

edit: deliberate mistake with the links

Running 1ghz AMD Athlon with 512 RAM and no problems - Video playback can take a second to start after hitting play but otherwise absolutly fine...

[daphatty]

One more thing, if you ever plan on adding an HDTV tuner as a second or third input source then you WILL need something more powerful than the specs you see in my sig. My system has a really hard time starting up the HDTV tuner when I'm already recording from another source.

Another point I want to throw in is an often overlooked aspect of PC/PVR building, the PSU. Make sure you have a PSU capable of handling the load. I learned the hard way that adding additional capture sources and hard drives quickly increased the power requirements. I was constantly experiencing random system reboots simply because I didn't have enough juice to power that second card up so it could record. My current PVR build actually has two PSUs; a 500 Watt PSU providing power to the system board, primary HD, and Optical Drive, and a 350 Watt PSU providing power to the RAID array drives.

[Itchy]

hmm.. the cases im looking at all have pathetic power supplies this one for example only has a 90watt output

power supplies for the mini itx cases are all pathetic like this im planning to run one hdd and my digitv tuner card a slimline dvd drive and a mobo

do i have no chance with a power supply that weak?