Newbie to gbpvr

[guy lavoie]

Hi to all.

I'm just getting started with gbpvr (just two days) but I have to say that I like what I have seen so far! This is just the type of pvr app that I wanted, with the ability to show other media files from the same main menu. I first tried to get it installed on a PC running Windows 2000 and ran into several problems (mostly with the Hauppauge PVR-250 card) but then I redid everything on a Win XP machine and its working fine as far as I can see. I'm using a Compaq EVO (small form factor PC) with a 1.5 Mhz P4 and 256 meg of RAM.

I'm a home automation enthusiast and I'm looking to integrate the pvr with the rest of my system. This brings up a couple of questions that I'd like to post at this time.

1- Is there an easy way to schedule a recording from outside the application? Ideally, I would like to be able to do it from the command line with arguments representing things like the channel, start time, duration, etc. Another alternative would be to be able to connect via an IP socket and schedule a recording that way. This is because I have a interactive voice response (IVR)phone system that I can fully script to do this kind of thing and launching a command line program along with arguments is quite easy to do. I can create a voice driven session or even a ADSI phone (Vista 350) script to get the information about what to record.

2- I see that it is possible to launch an external application to select a channel. I have digital cable and I would like to be able to have the pvr communicate with my home automation system which can already send IR commands to my cable box. I use an ADI Ocelot to control most things in my home and it can also learn and transmit IR commands. Is there more information I can read somewhere on how I can "talk" to an external channel selection program?

2b- (!) Can a scheduled channel selection to the PVR-250 switch it from an actual analog tuner channel to its composite input jack?

Thanks for any hints and responses to my above questions!

[Ted the Penguin]

1- Is there an easy way to schedule a recording from outside the application? Ideally, I would like to be able to do it from the command line with arguments representing things like the channel, start time, duration, etc. Another alternative would be to be able to connect via an IP socket and schedule a recording that way. This is because I have a interactive voice response (IVR)phone system that I can fully script to do this kind of thing and launching a command line program along with arguments is quite easy to do. I can create a voice driven session or even a ADSI phone (Vista 350) script to get the information about what to record.

check out the enhanced web admin, I am not sure if it has a CLI, or if the developer could tell you how to get a CLI to work with GBPVR (sub will probably have an answer about this one too)

2- I see that it is possible to launch an external application to select a channel. I have digital cable and I would like to be able to have the pvr communicate with my home automation system which can already send IR commands to my cable box. I use an ADI Ocelot to control most things in my home and it can also learn and transmit IR commands. Is there more information I can read somewhere on how I can "talk" to an external channel selection program?

yes, if the config App, in the capture source setup, under the channel changer option, there is a selection for an external application. just point it at the executable, it will pass the channel number to the executable, and whatever other switches you specify.

2b- (!) Can a scheduled channel selection to the PVR-250 switch it from an actual analog tuner channel to its composite input jack?

Thanks for any hints and responses to my above questions!

yes, you would create a capture source that contains the digital channels you want to use and have its source be the composite/svideo input, and one that contains the analog channels you want to use and have it be direct (or whatever I forget what the text is). then hook the composite/svideo input of the card to the STB. you will just have to make sure that you dont use both at the same time, as I think that will mess up your recording, since the 250 has only one physical tuner (once again, sub will probably have an answer about this)

[guy lavoie]

Thanks for the detailed responses. I have not been able to work on it for the past couple of days (and will be on and off this project for the next little while).

So in your answer to question 2b, you seem to imply that I can create two "capture sources" that use the same physical PVR-250 card, right? I'll have to read up on this.


In more expriments I have done I can schedule recordings and they work ok, but only if I capture to a local hard disk. If I specify a network path instead, it appears to be recording but there is no actual file being created. The recordings menu shows it as if it was recorded (and I get no error indication) but when I select the file, I can only choose Exit or Delete...there is no Play option. Am I doing something wrong? The shared drive permissions seem ok and I can manually paste files to that network drive ok.

[sub]

In more expriments I have done I can schedule recordings and they work ok, but only if I capture to a local hard disk. If I specify a network path instead, it appears to be recording but there is no actual file being created. The recordings menu shows it as if it was recorded (and I get no error indication) but when I select the file, I can only choose Exit or Delete...there is no Play option. Am I doing something wrong? The shared drive permissions seem ok and I can manually paste files to that network drive ok.

Remember, the recording service runs as a different user account, so mapped drives etc wont be visible. You should be ok with unc paths (\\servername\share)

[guy lavoie]

I just tested it with a unc path (browsed to it in the configuration program) but it still doesn't work. I even tried rebooting the PC first in order to restart everything, but no go.

Are others doing this?

[sub]

You might need to change the user account the recording service runs as. I suspect the default 'local system' account doesnt have network access.

Are others doing this?

I dont personally, but I know there are several others doing exactly this.

[guy lavoie]

Ok, thanks for the tip. I did some reading up and it appears that the Local System account does any network acces as an Anonymous user. I tried adding Anonymous to the users permitted to use the share but that didn't work.

I ended up creating a new user account and running the recording service under it. This account needed to have a password in order to allow the service to run under it. Now it works ok.

[guy lavoie]

This project is coming along pretty good. Thanks sub!

I was doing some forum searching in order to find out how to use both the card's internal tuner and the compsite input. I came across this thread which is asking similar questions:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=21746

I used the information in that thread to create a channel 0 which actually switches to the composite video input. I understand the concept of defining the channel ranges to automatically select the right card, but what if the channel numbers actually overlap for both sources even though the sources are actually different? In my case I'd like to have (for example) channels 2 to 799 to automatically select the composite video input and use an external tuner program to switch a cable box... and channels 800 to 899 to use the internal analog tuner and tune channels 2 to 79 as if they were "802" to "879". Is there a way to map a group of channels into an offset series like that? If so, can I still get the program guide to view the analog channel programming? Even if this means needing to program any analog recordings manually because the channels numbers no longer match the program guide. That would be fantastic.

I feel like I'm close and as I said earlier...so far I really like what I see! Thanks.

[sub]

I used the information in that thread to create a channel 0 which actually switches to the composite video input. I understand the concept of defining the channel ranges to automatically select the right card, but what if the channel numbers actually overlap for both sources even though the sources are actually different?

Yes, it can accommodate this.

You'll notice the config app has two levels of channel lists: (1) there is channel list in capture source settings, which needs to have the correct channel numbers for that source and (2) there is the master channel list tab which shows the combined list of all the channels listed in all the capture sources - these can be allocated any channel number you want. These numbers are only used for when you type in a channel number in GB-PVR.

[guy lavoie]

I'll check it out. Thanks for the quick answer!