Compro VideoMate E700 Dual DVB-T Config

[Josef_K]

I had this working (one tuner only) in XP x64 and now (both tuners) in Vista Ultimate x64:

[Compro VideoMate E700 Tuner 1]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Tuner 1
FILTER_CAPTURE=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Video Capture 1
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

[Compro VideoMate E700 Tuner 2]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Tuner 2
FILTER_CAPTURE=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Video Capture 2
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

Both are set to Device: 1

After installing Vista I thought I'd give Media Centre (not damned 'Center'!) a go and found it to be hideous. Video skipped, the event log stated loss of signal everywhere, the drive thrashed and it often missed recordings. I've tested a little bit and recording from two separate channels works great. The resulting MPEGs are steady, no skipping and two at once doesn't thrash the drive like MC did.

One problem, though, is that I need to figure out if it's my eyes or if it's the DRM in Vista. The MPEGs I've looked at recorded through GB-PVR seem ever so slightly low res. Maybe it's because I have had a few days since I recorded anything and am just expecting more but I know Vista has DRM which prevents you from seeing anything in high res for some reason I must research more. It seemed fine in XP, though - maybe it's just me...

Anyway, this setup is verified as working fine on Vista x64 and I only got around to testing a single tuner in XP x64 so maybe it will serve to help someone with the same hardware. I'll see if I can compare the MPEGs against previous recordings I made before Vista.

[sub]

[Compro VideoMate E700 Tuner 1]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Tuner 1
FILTER_CAPTURE=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Video Capture 1
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

[Compro VideoMate E700 Tuner 2]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Tuner 2
FILTER_CAPTURE=Compro VideoMate E700 DVB-T Video Capture 2
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

Cheers, I'll include these definitions in the master bda.ini file.

The MPEGs I've looked at recorded through GB-PVR seem ever so slightly low res.

When it comes to record from digital devices, GB-PVR just writes the original broadcast to disk, so there is definitely no down sizing of the resolution occurring.

If anything its probably just something to do with the video decoders you're using for playback.

[Josef_K]

If anything its probably just something to do with the video decoders you're using for playback.

Yes, I knew it was one of the factors. However, in case I missed something here or elsewhere that came to any solid conclusion I thought I'd ask anyway.

As always on a fresh install, I'm playing it safe rebuilding my codec base. I'm having to go through my downloads and sort out which I liked and which I did not. Well, that's my little bit of fun to ponder over in the coming days and/or weeks.

Most likely weeks - what fun...

P.S. Great work on GB-PVR. Nice to speak to the man himself. Comparing Media Centre to GB-PVR (if you'd had the E700 config in bda.ini to start with), GB-PVR would have blown MC out of the water for me personally. A pity I've missed a few days of getting decent recordings due to misguidedly thinking MC could actually be any good and because it detected my tuners out of the box. Well, live and learn.

[scottygb2k]

Hi,

I'm a GB-PVR newbie and recently bought a Compro VideoMate E700. I had setup a Vista Ultimate PC but found loads of problems getting software to work and hard disk just seemd to be constantly getting thrashed.

Anyways, i decided to go back to Windows XP and got everything working fine. I then needed some Media centre software and came across GB-PVR which looks awesome. Unfortunately i couldnt get it to work as it wouldn't find my E700 tuner. I found this thread so have added the information above into my bda.ini and it seems to pickup my tuner ok now.

My problem is that i can't tune any channels in. Anyone got any ideas?

[Josef_K]

I had setup a Vista Ultimate PC but found loads of problems getting software to work and hard disk just seemd to be constantly getting thrashed.

That depends on how long you had it up and running. Vista has Desktop Search built in. After a time, depending on how much you have to index, Vista will settle down. I decided to stick with it and see over time how it compared and the hard drives are steady and quiet (3x320GB RAID5 indexed and 1x320GB boot with my docs, etc. indexed) with over 1.1 million items indexed so it took a while. Also, which antivirus/firewall did you have running? A new install of AV might have had a particular scan you forgot to stop or tweak. Add to that a lot of firewalls these days run their own scans and the two conflict.

My problem is that i can't tune any channels in. Anyone got any ideas?

I never did get it working properly in XP with both tuners although I didn't really put much effort into it. Are they both set to device number 1? Try removing one of the tuner entries from bda.ini and scan a single tuner. Are you using the drivers from Compro's site? I notice checking now there are new drivers posted today but they are the same version number as I downloaded and installed a few days ago.

[scottygb2k]

I had Vista x64 running for nearly a month and it just seemed to always struggle with what ever i was doing. I have just built the PC (Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4Gb DDR2 Crucial & 2x Segate 500gb SataII drives) so should be more than enough to run Vista. I was using the Microsoft OneCare anti-virus solution as it seemed to be the best to use with the PC being 64Bit.

I copied and pasted the config from your original post into bda.ini and GB-PVR picks up both tuners but when i try to scan for channels it finds nothing. If i try to run the "Tuner" icon from the start menu i get an error saying it can't find a compatible tuner. I am using the drivers that came on the CD with the card. I did see an update on the website but read in a different post that the older drivers are better with GB-PVR.

One thing worth mentioning is that when i ran Windows Update it picked up a BDA driver update for my card so i installed that thinking it would help. Guess I was wrong.

The E700 card is very good but the software included is crap and can't really be used from distance.

[sub]

I copied and pasted the config from your original post into bda.ini and GB-PVR picks up both tuners but when i try to scan for channels it finds nothing.

Reproduce the problem then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[Josef_K]

I had Vista x64 running for nearly a month and it just seemed to always struggle with what ever i was doing. I have just built the PC (Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4Gb DDR2 Crucial & 2x Segate 500gb SataII drives) so should be more than enough to run Vista. I was using the Microsoft OneCare anti-virus solution as it seemed to be the best to use with the PC being 64Bit.

The best x64 antivirus/firewall right now seems to be Kaspersky which is fully x64 and Vista compatible. It's been running here as a trial for a while now and testing is going well. Additionally, Kaspersky rates highest in most AV tests so I know what I'll be stumping up cash for sooner rather than later.

I copied and pasted the config from your original post into bda.ini and GB-PVR picks up both tuners but when i try to scan for channels it finds nothing. If i try to run the "Tuner" icon from the start menu i get an error saying it can't find a compatible tuner. I am using the drivers that came on the CD with the card. I did see an update on the website but read in a different post that the older drivers are better with GB-PVR.

One thing worth mentioning is that when i ran Windows Update it picked up a BDA driver update for my card so i installed that thinking it would help. Guess I was wrong.

I seem to remember an issue trying to get XP to even find the tuners. Even just one. I can't remember exactly what I did to finally get it working. I assume you're running XP x64 (you have 4GB RAM) which is what I ran before Vista. It was no less than a bugger to work with to get my card working. As I said before, I could only get one tuner working. I did try (not very hard) to get both at once but it was not to be. Maybe this is a problem because XP x64 is based on Server 2003 and a server OS isn't geared towards those who might have TV cards. Also, drivers and XP x64 I always found a tad twitchy. At least now Vista is designed to cater to the masses so manufacturers have to make it work whereas XP x64 was more enthusiast oriented where the users might put in that bit more effort to get things working.

For what it's worth, the latest drivers on the Compro site are working well with Vista x64. Before that, the Vista native drivers worked well also, although GB-PVR still needed the bda.ini entries. I installed the Compro drivers Just In Case ™.

The E700 card is very good but the software included is crap and can't really be used from distance.

Agreed. The epguide irritates me in that it only shows a select number channels at once. Possibly linked to whichever frequency is currently tuned in. Or something. Either way, GB-PVR is what I want to use with any TV card. I had a Hauppauge until they point blank refused to write x64 drivers for it and many other of their cards. Gits. So all is well in Vista x64, which is something you need to know as confirmed - both with Vista's own drivers and with Compro's. Maybe try a dual boot or stick in a spare drive to test it again. Disable the indexer and check Task Scheduler to stop any periodic defrags, etc. Also, there's an update for Vista that breaks something. KB938979 sends hard drives into suspend and, depending on certain activity, spins up/down the drives. Some people report 1,000 power on/off cycles. Considering some drives have a stated 40k cycles it's a real drive killer.

[scottygb2k]

Well at moment I am running standard 32bit XP. I know XP only uses 2 GB but got so sick of vista I had to change back.

Anyways, I have had a play with the drivers and after I installed the new drivers from website and modified the bda.ini again GB-PVR picked up both tuners no problem. I was also able to scan for channels without any problems.

However I now have a new problem. I am unable to pickup any EPG data. I have set the EPG Source to "DVB EPG Broadcast" and clicked "map digital channels to EPG channels" and it finds the channels with correct names. I then select "Update EPG" and a window opens saying "starting scan" followed by "saving new listings and channel information". Then when I run PVRX2 the live TV works ok but the TV Guide section is empty. Every channel has "no show details" next to it.

I get no errors and everything looks to work but its not.

Any ideas would be much appreciated. I am so close to getting everything working.

[Josef_K]

Yes, I remember why I used XMLTV in XP now...

For some reason I couldn't get over the air epguide updates. Maybe Compro's drivers are just not happy in XP. Give XMLTV a go and don't fiddle with your tuner settings if you can help it. It's an extra hassle but you got the hard part over with already so you might as well go the last few steps.