GBPVR feature request

[craigslist4me]

I've been interested in getting TV/video into my PC for a long time and have played with capture cards back in 3dfx voodoo time. But I've always been using the bundled software until recently.

I tried couple of software DVRs and GBPVR seems to be the most featureful and well supported. However, I was really disappointed after trying several hours. I have an ATI theater 200 (theater pro) card, an old AveMedia capture only card based on SAA7xx chipset, and a 3dfx voodoo tuner card. None of them is supported by GBPVR itself, and the software plugin always display a "value out of range" error and closes. I understand none of them has a hardware encoder, but I'm sure most consumer purchase a TV tuner first before researching in software and will end up in the same situation as I am. I also question the usefulness of hardware encoder, as I have seen MPEG2 encoded by PVR-250 and I am not impressed by its image quality compared to a software encoder. I personally would like to have TV shows encoded in DivX rather than converting them later. As of CPU load, I don't think it is a big issue, real-time software encoding seem to take less CPU than displaying it on screen (watching live tv in sage = 25% CPU, background encoding = 10% CPU, 2.92G C2D, 2G ram).

So I ended up using SageTV, since it is the ONLY program I can get it to work (tried everything possible, beyondtv, yahoo go tv, media portal). GBPVR seems very promising. I just hope it supports software encoder in later releases and I am sure the user base will likely increase 10-fold as there are so many TV tuner cards and so few has hardware encoder.

[sub]

Sorry, I wont be adding support for software encoder cards.

[dneprrider]

but I'm sure most consumer purchase a TV tuner first before researching in software and will end up in the same situation as I am.

I would have thought exactly the opposite myself in that most people would research first, find out whats available and then made their purchase using the best information available. That is what I did and ended up with the best solution of a hardware encoder and GBPVR.

I remember a similar situations in the past when software modem were available (cheaper than their hardware models). Then as now, software processing on cards is the cheaper way to go but not the best way.

After using GBPVR for almost 2 years now, nothing else comes close to its performance and ease of use.

Hope you find a good hardware card and see how much better it is. Try and get this level of support elsewhere, with those other products.

[mobiusnz]

I've been interested in getting TV/video into my PC for a long time and have played with capture cards back in 3dfx voodoo time. But I've always been using the bundled software until recently.

I tried couple of software DVRs and GBPVR seems to be the most featureful and well supported. However, I was really disappointed after trying several hours. I have an ATI theater 200 (theater pro) card, an old AveMedia capture only card based on SAA7xx chipset, and a 3dfx voodoo tuner card. None of them is supported by GBPVR itself, and the software plugin always display a "value out of range" error and closes. I understand none of them has a hardware encoder, but I'm sure most consumer purchase a TV tuner first before researching in software and will end up in the same situation as I am. I also question the usefulness of hardware encoder, as I have seen MPEG2 encoded by PVR-250 and I am not impressed by its image quality compared to a software encoder. I personally would like to have TV shows encoded in DivX rather than converting them later. As of CPU load, I don't think it is a big issue, real-time software encoding seem to take less CPU than displaying it on screen (watching live tv in sage = 25% CPU, background encoding = 10% CPU, 2.92G C2D, 2G ram).

So I ended up using SageTV, since it is the ONLY program I can get it to work (tried everything possible, beyondtv, yahoo go tv, media portal). GBPVR seems very promising. I just hope it supports software encoder in later releases and I am sure the user base will likely increase 10-fold as there are so many TV tuner cards and so few has hardware encoder.

Wrong, wrong, wrong - I have four tuners in my pc and utilise them ALL at once from time to time (mainly 2 channels back to back it flipflops recording devices to enable 5 minute buffers on every recording) - How well is a pc going to handle software encoding 4 recordings at once - all the while playing back with software decoder on the TV and playing a recording over the network with an MVP - This just wouldn't be possible without hardware encoders.

[yomanwill]

....sounds like somebody doesn't have a quad core CPU

[craigslist4me]

In fact, when I bought my TV tuner, I never thought of having to use a 3rd party program. I just assumed the software that comes with it will do the job. I'm a pretty good with PC myself and I'm sure 85% of general user is no more knowledgable when they purchase a piece of hardware.

But no problem, that is cool. PBPVR is a good product and it is made on someone's free time, so of course I'm not complaining. I'm just thought it would be a something good to have.

I would have thought exactly the opposite myself in that most people would research first, find out whats available and then made their purchase using the best information available. That is what I did and ended up with the best solution of a hardware encoder and GBPVR.

I remember a similar situations in the past when software modem were available (cheaper than their hardware models). Then as now, software processing on cards is the cheaper way to go but not the best way.

After using GBPVR for almost 2 years now, nothing else comes close to its performance and ease of use.

Hope you find a good hardware card and see how much better it is. Try and get this level of support elsewhere, with those other products.

[craigslist4me]

Having 4 tuner probably represent less than 1% of all TV tuner card user, whereas at least 50% of them use software based card. As I've said, software MPEG2 encoding only takes about 10% CPU (probably less than that, because there are other background tasks running) on my C2D. So I don't think 4 capture card will be a problem. Besides, from my experiences xvid encoding is not much more CPU intensive than MPEG2, so software encoding directly to xvid will be a lot cooler than taking up 3G/hour HD space.

Wrong, wrong, wrong - I have four tuners in my pc and utilise them ALL at once from time to time (mainly 2 channels back to back it flipflops recording devices to enable 5 minute buffers on every recording) - How well is a pc going to handle software encoding 4 recordings at once - all the while playing back with software decoder on the TV and playing a recording over the network with an MVP - This just wouldn't be possible without hardware encoders.

[pastro]

Having 4 tuner probably represent less than 1% of all TV tuner card user, whereas at least 50% of them use software based card. As I've said, software MPEG2 encoding only takes about 10% CPU (probably less than that, because there are other background tasks running) on my C2D. So I don't think 4 capture card will be a problem. Besides, from my experiences xvid encoding is not much more CPU intensive than MPEG2, so software encoding directly to xvid will be a lot cooler than taking up 3G/hour HD space.

Very surprising that you see 10% encoding and 25% decode. The encode process is usually more cpu intensive. Could your software card have some sort of hardware assist?

What bit rate are you encoding? If you set it to 6Mbs do you still get 10%?

[bgowland]

Having 4 tuner probably represent less than 1% of all TV tuner card user, whereas at least 50% of them use software based card.

I'd love to know where you get your statistics from.

As I've said, software MPEG2 encoding only takes about 10% CPU (probably less than that, because there are other background tasks running) on my C2D.

I currently have 3 recordings running using my PVR350 and PVR500. CPU usage is varying between 2-4%. My machine is a P4 2.4GHz with 1GB RAM so it's not that impressive - it doesn't have to do much work though as the hardware encoding is coping with it.

Cheers,
Brian

[flyswatta]

Wow. I have 3 hardware tuners and 1 software tuner. I started off with a software one, but then when I wasn't impressed with the quality, bought a different brand software card ('cause its cheap). I soon found out that I wasn't impressed with the CPU overhead (at the time I had a P4 1.6). I spent the extra $40 and got a OEM PVR150MCE and was immediately impressed - both with the quality of recording, ease of install, and low CPU consumption. I soon bought another one, and tried to get the 2 150's to work with the software card. I had nothing but headaches. I came across a deal on Ebay for a MAUI IIIG hardware card and bought it. I pulled the software card out and the headaches immediately ceased (my doctor was amazed ). I sold one of the software cards, and threw the other one in a test box.

Moral of the story: You can save a few $ by buying the software card, but it'll cost you a lot of time and aggravation.

If you take the time you can probably get the software card working and hopefully it won't break every time you upgrade software, drivers, etc. However, if you want something that'll work with almost every PVR software out there, you can get a hardware based card for around $60, which isn't much compared to the time saved, and the peace of mind