Hvr-1250

[markm]

Since GBPVR just works, it's been running on my basement server with an old PVR-250 for what seems like forever now.

I'm thinking about rebuilding the PVR box, and was looking at adding a HVR-1250, but not sure that's the right choice. I haven't followed alot of this stuff for quite some time..

I do *no* playback at all on the box. In fact, I don't even use GBPVR for anything other than recording. I could probably use something else, but I'm familiar with it, and it has all the neat hooks in the right places to massage my media the way I want.

All playbox is done on xbox's running XBMC.

Today, I record analog cable, and then post-process with ffmpeg to convert to xvid. I do this for 2 reasons, mainly because interlaced video looks like crap on the xbox, so I de-interlace with ffmpeg. xvid files are smaller, so I can save more shows this way as well.

I'm not so concerned with HD, since the xbox can't support it, but better quality in == better quality out. So I'd like to grab HD and QAM from the cable, then convert that to xvid.

I thought of looking for a card capable of recording xvid, but I'm not sure any do, and wasn't sure if/what support GBPVR would have. It seems to want cards with onboard mpeg2.

Which leads me to my main question, will the HVR-1250 be suitable for simply recording, then post-converting, since as far as I can tell, it lacks onboard mpeg2?

I've had good luck with Hauppauge cards, and I want a set and forget setup, but if someone has a better recommendation, I'm open to suggestions. Needs to be cheap though.

[sub]

The thing worth noting about the HVR1250 is the lack of hardware MPEG2 encoder. This means it will not be usable as an analog card with GB-PVR. It can be used for digital TV though.

[markm]

This means it will not be usable as an analog card with GB-PVR.

I think I'm OK with no analog. I know my cable company dual-casts both QAM and analog channels, and I suspect the analog will go away at some point anyway.

So as long as I'm looking to capture digital channels, I'll end up with an MPEG/TS stream that I can then transcode as I want?

[sub]

You should be ok then. I havnt personally used this device though, so cant vouch for how good it is.

[Wakalaka]

I just got the HVR-1250 to replace my PVR150MCE, since I want to cancel cable to save money but still get broadcast channels in HD. I'm not sure where to start to add this card as a capture device, since I first want to make sure my antenna can pick up the HD channels. I've seen a few threads here about added text to bda.ini. I imagine I also need to add a broadcast lineup to my SchedulesDirect account.

How can I test my card and antenna to make sure they pick up the HD OTA channels? WinTV only supports 1 tuner, and it's finding my PVR150MCE first, and I'm not ready to yank that card out of my system.

[sub]

Add these to your bda.ini file:

[Hauppauge HVR-1250MCE (ATSC)]
TUNING_TYPE=ATSC
FILTER_TUNER=Hauppauge WinTV 885 BDA Tuner/Demod
FILTER_CAPTURE=Hauppauge WinTV 885 TS Capture
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

[Hauppauge HVR-1250MCE (QAM)]
TUNING_TYPE=ATSC
TUNING_SPECIAL=2
FILTER_TUNER=Hauppauge WinTV 885 BDA Tuner/Demod
FILTER_CAPTURE=Hauppauge WinTV 885 TS Capture
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

After this, setup a capture source using the Digital Recording Plugin, and you should see the HVR-1250 listed as an option. As a last step in setting up the capture source you need to hit the 'map digital channels to epg channels' to force the channel scan.

You may need to add a different lineup to your SchedulesDirect account if the channels it currently supplies is not a good match with

[Wakalaka]

I found that thread with the bda.ini data and added it. I then added a tuner like you specified.

I have 2 lineups in SchedulesDirect, one is for my cable provider (which will be dropped once the HVR-1250 is functioning), and one for local broadcast HD channels. When I update EPG, all of the channels for BOTH lineups are listed in each capture source, even though the HD channels aren't available on my PVR150MCE, and the cable ones aren't available on my HVR-1250. How does each capture source know which channel it can tune?

How could I not add a broadcast HD lineup and make the HVR-1250 use cable channels? Don't they tune differently, the PVR150MCE from the coax cable for my cable provider, and the HVR-1250 from the coax cable for the HD antenna?

[sub]

When you update your EPG it'll add all the channels supplied by Schedules Direct.

You can either untick the 'enabled' checkbox the channels that arent applicable to each capture source, or you can recreate capture source and this time specify the schedules direct username as "username;line-up-code". This causes the capture source to only pull in channels from the specified lineup instead of all lineups.

[Wakalaka]

The Enabled checkbox doesn't seem to work. On the PVR150MCE, the checkboxes appear to save state (I unchecked all HD broadcast channels, clicked OK, clicked OK to get out of config app, then went back into config app and edit the PVR150MCE capture source). The HVR-1250 keeps all Enabled checkboxes as unchecked, even though I checked all HD broadcast channels.

How do I find out what the line-up-code is so I can specify that in my login name for SchedulesDirect?

[sub]

The HVR-1250 keeps all Enabled checkboxes as unchecked, even though I checked all HD broadcast channels.

This is because you need to do the 'map digital channels to epg channels' step. It scan for digital channels. Once complete, you need to click in the tuning request column of each channel on the left of the screen to do the mapping.

Any digital channels without a mapping will be automatically disabled, which is why they kept unchecking these channels.

How do I find out what the line-up-code is so I can specify that in my login name for SchedulesDirect?

They used to show it on the Schedules Direct line up page, but that was removed for some reason. I think now its only in the URL.