Getting GBPVR up and running...

[Viper-Byte]

Hey Peeps

I am building a media PC, specs below and I am having a little trouble getting the EPG and tuning correct. I am in New Zealand and where I live I am unable to get anything other than digital satellite, I have Sky digital, which is going to be my source for the media PC so I am running the output of the Sky decoder into the antenna of the TV Tuner, also I have got the SCART out of the Sky decoder going into the svideo/audio in of the TV Tuner.

Now, these work fine in WinTV 2000. But I am wanting to run GBPVR. I have installed it and all, got everything configured (except the capture sources) I see that djkxml is the EPG recommended for GBPVR, I followed the instructions here and set the EPG source to XMLTV Plugin and selected the tvguide.xml and accepted that, it populated the channels, I thought great. I went into the TV Guide in GBPVR and there was nothing in there (and yes, I have updated dkjxml and GBPVRs EPG). I opened the tvguide.xml in IE7 and it said "The system cannot locate the resource specified. Error processing resource 'xmltv.dtd'. Error processing resource 'file://..." Anyone able to shed some light on this part?

The next part is, I want the EPG to display the channels, TV1, TV2 etc down the bottom in the on screen display and allow me to change the channel, but have all channels from the same input (do you know what I mean?), I know my Sky decoder is sending out 606.500 Mhz as I get a good signal on WinTV 2000 via antenna input.

I have also read in the supported cards list that the Hauppauge WinTV PVR350 is not recommended, could this be causing me any issues?

Specs
AMD Athlon XP 1700+
2 X 256MB DDR333
40GB IDE HDD (am getting more, this is only the OS HDD)
Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 (am using TV out to display on TV)

Thanks

[stustunz]

i use revens xmltv
but whats the size of the xml file you are downloading
by the way your probably better off using notepad to to open your xml files not explorer

you have to use a infra red sender will a program like hip to change channels
(you will have to buy something like a mce remote and use the sender off that)

[Viper-Byte]

OK, I will give that a go then.

The size of the tvguide.xml file is 1,558 KB.

I do not want to change the channel on the Sky decoder with GBPVR, that is what my Sky remote is for All I want to do is change channels in GBPVR so I can have the on screen display showing the program info for what is currently on that channel in GBPVR (as I will be changing channels with the Sky remote, what ever channel the Sky decoder is on I will set GBPVR to) so when I am on TV1 in GBPVR it shows the program info for what is on TV1 (even if TV2 is playing on the Sky decoder)

[stustunz]

once you get the epg data loading properly then
it should work
sounds half arse to me but go for yor life

[Viper-Byte]

I have been reading a bit on here and have found others have freezing issues with TV out on the WinTV PVR350s... I also get this with the channels that the EPG sets, (they are all blank screens though.) Yet I can use the TV out fine with WinTV 2000... I tried to use the GFX card to run the TV instead of the TV out and found this was not successful at all, 100% CPU usage and video was choppy... (GFX card is a GeForce 4 MX4000 PCI).

I would prefer to have hardware decoding to run GBPVR on, as the CPU is a little weak, is there some other hardware (fairly cheap) that will do what I want and run with GBPVR? If not I may have to invest in something more powerful

BTW it is not half arsed, it is all I need, so why spend extra money where it is not needed?

[sub]

The size of the tvguide.xml file is 1,558 KB.

If you hit the 'update epg' button in your capture source then zip and attach your config.exe.log then I'll take a look for you.

I do not want to change the channel on the Sky decoder with GBPVR, that is what my Sky remote is for All I want to do is change channels in GBPVR so I can have the on screen display showing the program info for what is currently on that channel in GBPVR (as I will be changing channels with the Sky remote, what ever channel the Sky decoder is on I will set GBPVR to) so when I am on TV1 in GBPVR it shows the program info for what is on TV1 (even if TV2 is playing on the Sky decoder)

Yuck... I know you said you dont want to, but you should really consider adding an IR Blaster so it'll change channels for you when it needs to. (or see my next post)

I have been reading a bit on here and have found others have freezing issues with TV out on the WinTV PVR350s... I also get this with the channels that the EPG sets, (they are all blank screens though.) Yet I can use the TV out fine with WinTV 2000...

It works in WinTV 2K because it doesnt use the buggy OSD display part of the PVR350 drivers. The only other application that does (SageTV) suffers from exactly the same problem as GB-PVR in relation to this. WinTV only displays video, with no onscreen graphics.

Also keep in mind I'm in the process of replacing the GBPVR.exe user interface with the new PVRX2.exe user interface. This process is nearly complete, and when it is, then GBPVR.exe will be dropped from the install package. It also hasnt been updated in aobut 11 months, so is already lacking features that are present in PVRX2.exe.

[sub]

As another option... Given you already have the dish, I'd get a cheap DVB-S capture device, which will give you much better quality reception of all the Freeview channels, and also give you the ability to watch/record these core set of channels without tying up your Sky digital receiver.

It would also give you a way to download the EPG from satelite, for use with both your DVB-S device and PVR350, without having to worry about djkxml or xmltvnz.

[stustunz]

the reason i say its half arsed is that, say you go away and want to record sky sport at say 2am and then the next day want to record a movie on sky movies you are not there to change the sky box so you cant do it
just seems easier to me having one remote to do everything
what video card do you have
i see what you mean about been under powered but it may work if you have a video card that can do hardware decoding (doesnt have to be a mega expensive card)

[Viper-Byte]

If you hit the 'update epg' button in your capture source then zip and attach your config.exe.log then I'll take a look for you.

OK, the file is attached.

Yuck... I know you said you dont want to, but you should really consider adding an IR Blaster so it'll change channels for you when it needs to. (or see my next post)

OK, I guess it could come in handy, but I am just thinking a head as I want to get a decent speced complete (IR Blaster included) media PC (one that can actually run off the TV out of the GFX card without running at anywhere near 100% CPU)

It works in WinTV 2K because it doesnt use the buggy OSD display part of the PVR350 drivers. The only other application that does (SageTV) suffers from exactly the same problem as GB-PVR in relation to this. WinTV only displays video, with no onscreen graphics.

Ah, I see, now that I think about it all the crashes did occur when the OSD was up...

Also keep in mind I'm in the process of replacing the GBPVR.exe user interface with the new PVRX2.exe user interface. This process is nearly complete, and when it is, then GBPVR.exe will be dropped from the install package. It also hasnt been updated in aobut 11 months, so is already lacking features that are present in PVRX2.exe.

Oh OK, what differences will this make?

As another option... Given you already have the dish, I'd get a cheap DVB-S capture device, which will give you much better quality reception of all the Freeview channels, and also give you the ability to watch/record these core set of channels without tying up your Sky digital receiver.

Yes, I have thought of this, but are there any cheap DVB-S hardware encoders/decoders?

It would also give you a way to download the EPG from satelite, for use with both your DVB-S device and PVR350, without having to worry about djkxml or xmltvnz.

That is true.

the reason i say its half arsed is that, say you go away and want to record sky sport at say 2am and then the next day want to record a movie on sky movies you are not there to change the sky box so you cant do it
just seems easier to me having one remote to do everything
dont know pc specs so cant say if you will be able to use your video card etc or give advice on what actually needs updating

I do see your point, I am just wanting to get a media PC up and running now and then save up and build a decent one

[sub]

2007-12-27 08:29:13.547 ERROR [5] XMLTV: error reading xml: Item has already been added. Key in dictionary: '11' Key being added: '11'

Your xmltv file seems to be invalid. There seems to be some duplicate channels. If you zip and attach the xmltv file, I'll give you a more detailed description.

Also keep in mind I'm in the process of replacing the GBPVR.exe user interface with the new PVRX2.exe user interface. This process is nearly complete, and when it is, then GBPVR.exe will be dropped from the install package. It also hasnt been updated in aobut 11 months, so is already lacking features that are present in PVRX2.exe.

Oh OK, what differences will this make?

The most significant differents was that the old UI in GBPVR.exe was hardcoded for 720x480, and looked like crap on the ever-increasing number of widescreen and/or large screen (LCDs, Plasmas etc) that

The new UI automatically handles differences between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio TVs, and uses the native resolution of the screen for the best possible text rendering.

There is lots of other advantages to the new UI as well.

As another option... Given you already have the dish, I'd get a cheap DVB-S capture device, which will give you much better quality reception of all the Freeview channels, and also give you the ability to watch/record these core set of channels without tying up your Sky digital receiver.

Yes, I have thought of this, but are there any cheap DVB-S hardware encoders/decoders?

They dont need hardware encoders because the broadcaster encodes it prior to transmission. The application just saves the already-encoded stream it receives straight to disk.

Specialist hardware decoder devices are a thing of the past (Hollywood+, PVR350, XCard etc). These types of devices are out of favour and no longer developed. These days people just use the hardware acceleration features of their video cards.