2006-10-31, 06:29 AM
Hey there, I've already started asking questions in other areas of these forums so hey it's only polite to say hello before I ask to much of the community. I should warn you now this will be a bit of a read.
My story...
Been a fairly tech oriented nut for most of my life, but circumstances conspired against me so I've never had a PVR before - sob story, I know! Friend of mine had a Hauppauge PVR-250 card he wasn't using anymore so I thought I'd see if I could turn some left over hardware at work into a PVR for myself.
As a lot of people do I went straight to MythTV because that's the big name in the world of DIY PVRs. I dabble in Linux, but that's about it to be honest and I sort of got it working. Could watch live TV, but it was a very shaky setup with a lot of bugs that I didn't have the first clue about how to fix. I got tired of what is for me the normal Linux routine - up and running quickly, then countless hours of digging through forums, man pages, etc. trying to get it to do what I actually want it to with my set of hardware and goals.
Now I've done some poking around into home brew PVRs before and had at least heard of GB-PVR as one of, if not the, only free Windows options. After a particularly infuriating round with the Linux box I read up on GB-PVR and decided to give that a try on the same hardware with a different drive. That way I could easily compare the two PVR systems fairly and besides I knew I would either have GB-PVR running quickly or not in short order so it wouldn't take a lot of my time.
Skipping some of the tedium here, in short order I had a basic PVR going on Windows 2k Pro and was pretty pleased with myself that all the basic functions were *working* including live tv, scheduled recordings, even the remote control. I think once I got the remote working I was hooked. Well that and the real show stopper being ComSkip I'd have to say
.
After repeated disappointment with video playback quality (recordings were fine, but played back "iffy" in GB-PVR) I just tonight swapped out the anemic Radeon 7000 video card for a Radeon 9500Pro and *WOW* what a difference! Video is truly great now, I can use the VMR9 Custom setting and generally it's all performing wonderfully. Well that's where I am tonight after watching the latest episode of Heroes, minus the commercials of course!
Here are some tips that I learned along the way, but didn't always see spelled out in obvious places:
Ok sorry for such a long post :o. I hope to keep improving on my GB-PVR box and I'm sure that will mean a lot of questions for you guys along the way. Here's my near future to-do list in order of importance:
GB-PVR is truly amazing and I want to thank Sub as well as the community that has helped support the project over the years.
Thanks Sub!
~ Shadowplay ~
My story...
Been a fairly tech oriented nut for most of my life, but circumstances conspired against me so I've never had a PVR before - sob story, I know! Friend of mine had a Hauppauge PVR-250 card he wasn't using anymore so I thought I'd see if I could turn some left over hardware at work into a PVR for myself.
As a lot of people do I went straight to MythTV because that's the big name in the world of DIY PVRs. I dabble in Linux, but that's about it to be honest and I sort of got it working. Could watch live TV, but it was a very shaky setup with a lot of bugs that I didn't have the first clue about how to fix. I got tired of what is for me the normal Linux routine - up and running quickly, then countless hours of digging through forums, man pages, etc. trying to get it to do what I actually want it to with my set of hardware and goals.
Now I've done some poking around into home brew PVRs before and had at least heard of GB-PVR as one of, if not the, only free Windows options. After a particularly infuriating round with the Linux box I read up on GB-PVR and decided to give that a try on the same hardware with a different drive. That way I could easily compare the two PVR systems fairly and besides I knew I would either have GB-PVR running quickly or not in short order so it wouldn't take a lot of my time.
Skipping some of the tedium here, in short order I had a basic PVR going on Windows 2k Pro and was pretty pleased with myself that all the basic functions were *working* including live tv, scheduled recordings, even the remote control. I think once I got the remote working I was hooked. Well that and the real show stopper being ComSkip I'd have to say
.After repeated disappointment with video playback quality (recordings were fine, but played back "iffy" in GB-PVR) I just tonight swapped out the anemic Radeon 7000 video card for a Radeon 9500Pro and *WOW* what a difference! Video is truly great now, I can use the VMR9 Custom setting and generally it's all performing wonderfully. Well that's where I am tonight after watching the latest episode of Heroes, minus the commercials of course!
Here are some tips that I learned along the way, but didn't always see spelled out in obvious places:
- Use a "real" video card! Believe me it makes a HUGE difference going from an old dirt cheap 32mb card to a modern 128mb or better DirectX 9 hardware card. It is absolutely a night and day difference here.
- For the smoothest TV playback set your resolution to the same as your videos, e.g. 720x480 for NTSC - my old 32mb Radeon 7000 only supported 640x480 or 800x600 so I couldn't use native video resolution until I switched to a newer card.
- You can't make "high quality" the default for quick records so edit the "medium quality" entry and set the values to that of high quality or better since "medium quality" is what is always used for by default. Your records will still say they are using "medium quality", but you're know you're getting exactly the quality you want.
- If recorded files playback fine outside of GB-PVR, but are not as good inside GB-PVR then it's likely either the wrong combination of settings inside GB-PVR (video decoder, overlay selection and deinterlacing being the biggies) or you have underpowered hardware, e.g. weak video card
Ok sorry for such a long post :o. I hope to keep improving on my GB-PVR box and I'm sure that will mean a lot of questions for you guys along the way. Here's my near future to-do list in order of importance:
- Add drive(s) to greatly increase recording ability
- Get priority recordings working
- Figure out which IR Blaster / Channel Changer to get so I can control my digital cable box.
- Get auto conversion to DivX or XviD working
- Track down occasional EPG data weirdness
GB-PVR is truly amazing and I want to thank Sub as well as the community that has helped support the project over the years.
Thanks Sub!
~ Shadowplay ~
