Using GBPVR Without EPG

[TexasJack]

Hello.

I have a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 which I use exclusively to record my children's home school lessons via satellite. It's very important that the lessons get recorded and I've found the software provided by Hauppauge to be very unreliable (maybe due to Vista?) so I thought I would try to use GBPVR for recording. The tuner is fed from the homeschool satellite box and receives only one channel: 3.

Anyway when I try to set up the capture card, it wants me to set up a EPG. Since the tuner is fed directly from the homeschool satellite feed, obviously there is no and will be no EPG. I tried to find something on wiki about not using an EPG, but with no luck. Anyone out there that can help?

Or.... maybe GBPVR is way too much for my simple needs and there some other (preferrably free) PVR software I can use. Thanks.

[sub]

You can set your capture source's EPG source to 'none' then manually add the channels you have.

[sun4384]

In such a case, is it still possible to use mini guide to change channels? It's very convenient to jump to a channel that's far in the list.

[sub]

Yes. It obviously wont list what is on that channel though.

[TexasJack]

Got it! Thanks!

On a related subject, from reading the wiki it seems that the Hauppauge 150 is the most common card used with GBPVR. The video quality of mine is very poor. I know the signal is good and I've tried playing with the Primary settings, but to no avail. I was wondering if others using the 150 had the same poor quality - if I was missing something or that's just the nature of the beast.

[sub]

What exactly about the video is poor? Its hard to guess without knowing more.

Assuming its a playback thing rather than a capture thing, then this sort of thing comes down to the video decoder the user is using, along with the quality of the videocard.

[Deusxmachina]

Astantax in the Noob Needs Help thread has a 150 and doesn't care for the quality, either. Might want to compare notes. If you both have similar-looking pictures, it's probably the nature of the beast.

[TexasJack]

Sub-

I'm pretty sure it's not a playback thing. If I play regular DVDs on the machine, it plays fine. Also the DVDs that I burn from the recordings are fuzzy when I play them on my regular DVD player hooked up to my TV. I also know the signal is good because I can hook up a TV instead of the computer and the picture looks fine. I think it must the card or the recording software. I called Hauppauge and they told me to play with the Primary settings, but it didn't help. Maybe I'll take Deusxmachina's advice and check with Astantax. Thanks.

[sub]

I dont know then. Maybe your eyes dont like the picture produced by the Hauppauge PVR150's hardware encoder, or you have a dud 150. The picture it produces isnt as good as a regular DVD, because the TV source it is recording isnt as good as a DVD. It should produce a picture that is just little worse than the tv signal you receive. Most people are happy with it.

Try recording using the high quality setting to see if it helps.

[stustunz]

you can use the hauppuage tweak tool to sharpen the picture slightly
also the signal that the pvr150 requires is a better signal than your tv so just cause your tv looks fines doesnt mean that your 150 is going to