My firs questions here. please help

[vlad67]

Hi all. Just want to say hello and thanks for the software.

Really interesting development… I had Cablevision DVR box for some time. It worked OK except that all Russian channels in my area are running behind Guide schedules (from 10 minutes, during weekdays to 30-40 minutes during weekends). So most of my shows are recorded without 10 - 40 minutes at the end. So I start looking into PC based solutions with greater flexibility. I spend one week on wi-ki and forum and pretty much made everything to work but….!!!!

First of all here is my hardware setup:

This computer is only for DVR. It’s a Dell Precision 4600, P4 2.8 GHz with HT, 512MB PC3200 RAM (if you suggest I can put 1GB, but using performance monitor it looks like memory usage is under 350MB), 500GB Sata-150 drive, ATI Radeon 9550 Videocard with the latest Catalyst drivers and MCE-3000 (PTV-305) TV capture card, connected to Cable box via composite cable, not built-in TV Tuner). The whole setup is running XP Pro with SP3 and all available updates installed. Direct 9c.

GBPVR2 1.2.13, Yahoo! TV EPG installed and working (420 digital channels imported into GBPVR2). GBPVR2 changes channel on TSB using Microsoft IR blaster/remote.

To get some extra codec’s I installed Nero 7, Power DVD 5 and K-Lite set of decoders/filters. As without installing Power DVD i had black screen, ensteaf of life TV. Everything seams to work but unusable and here is why:

1. Going to Guide take forever to refresh listings on monitor. My Russian channels at 251 position – and it take good 2 minuts for listing to refresh to that point. I thought after I reload EPG from yapixml.xml it should be available instantly in GBPVR2. What can be wrong???
2. picture in life TV is far from acceptable. Very “Ghosty” (fussy and with some delays and out of sync with sound). I Played with playback decoders, but it didn’t help much. Could you point me in right direction please.
(just FYI. the recorded shows are OK if played outside GBPVR)

Never mind on #2. i see there is no simple answer on this. i'll continue experementing. will start with Direct 9b and replace Power DVD 5 to trail Power DVD 7

3. and last but not least. Is my hardware configuration strong enough for the latest releases? Maybe I should use GBPVR instead of PVRX2??? If yes, where do I get older stable version?

4. Is there a way to instruct GBPVR to changed channel to require one right before recording? I ran into problem that GBPVR “thinks” it’s on right channel, but TSB was changed to a different channel by TSB remote?

I do not need any extras!! I need just to record shows and late watch them. Maybe in the future do commercials skip and DVD burning. But now I need to make two basic features to work fast and reliable.

Thanks a lot in advance for the help.
Vlad

[pBS]

1. memory actually will help guide load, but also having less channels, and it's only slow first time to load after startup...rest of time it should be instant..

2.the video card is just barely enough...try using the ati decoder with vmr9fse.
that card can't do hd very well, also try overlay mode...it can with that..
but if only viewing sd content, use vmr9fse...
also might wanna try ffdshow and enable mpeg2 decoder...
3. cpu and video card fine for sd...can try evr by installing .net3 [and get xp patch]
4. it does this already...using HIP to blast with? or built in?
it sends channel# just after recording starts...gotta stay off the remote..

you may need to be sure to record short keypresses when recording them...
[it plays them back like you pressed them, so don't hold down while 'learning',use quick hits just enough for it to recognize..]

[Ted the Penguin]

is your playback unacceptable ONLY for live TV? or is it bad for recordings as well?

[vlad67]

is your playback unacceptable ONLY for live TV? or is it bad for recordings as well?

for live TV. Recordings are OK, but not 1:1 copy from what i see on TV. Please do not forget that i'm not using TV card's tuner, so recording copy should be close 1:1 to what i see on old, 7 y.o. TV set, right?

[Ted the Penguin]

for live TV. Recordings are OK, but not 1:1 copy from what i see on TV. Please do not forget that i'm not using TV card's tuner, so recording copy should be close 1:1 to what i see on old, 7 y.o. TV set, right?

well, it depends, if your card supports live preview it should be pretty close, but not perfect, remember the signal you are getting is designed for a CRT, which is then being converted to a digital signal, processed, and then converted back to analog; on the fly. if you are not using live preview mode, then you are recording to a file, then playing that file back, so its doing the exact same thing as your recordings. if you look at the settings for the capture source you can modify the quality for the various types of recordings, including Live TV. try mucking with that, and see if it can improve the quality for you.

[vlad67]

well, it depends, if your card supports live preview it should be pretty close, but not perfect, remember the signal you are getting is designed for a CRT, which is then being converted to a digital signal, processed, and then converted back to analog; on the fly. if you are not using live preview mode, then you are recording to a file, then playing that file back, so its doing the exact same thing as your recordings. if you look at the settings for the capture source you can modify the quality for the various types of recordings, including Live TV. try mucking with that, and see if it can improve the quality for you.

Thanks. i'll try all that.

1. memory actually will help guide load, but also having less channels, and it's only slow first time to load after startup...rest of time it should be instant..

2.the video card is just barely enough...try using the ati decoder with vmr9fse.
that card can't do hd very well, also try overlay mode...it can with that..
but if only viewing sd content, use vmr9fse...
also might wanna try ffdshow and enable mpeg2 decoder...
3. cpu and video card fine for sd...can try evr by installing .net3 [and get xp patch]
4. it does this already...using HIP to blast with? or built in?
it sends channel# just after recording starts...gotta stay off the remote..

you may need to be sure to record short keypresses when recording them...
[it plays them back like you pressed them, so don't hold down while 'learning',use quick hits just enough for it to recognize..]

First of all my TV os 7 yo CRT, no HD, so i do not need HD recording/playing. I also can upgrade Radeon 9550 to XFX GeForce 6200 256MB (passive heatsink as well). would it be better? I have to watch heating problem in small case (i have low factor PC)

EVR did not work at all, net 3.0 is installed, but i'm not sure about patch you mentioned -- i'll investigate

I could not make HIP to work. i was successful up to the point, where "test" in hip switches TSB, but i could not make PVRX2 to control TSB via HIP. I'm using built in 2005MCE IR Blaster plug-in and it seams to work as your mentioned. this is not an issue anymore Thanks


[COLOR="Blue"]My last question:

given that i need basic recording/ playing SD functionality what version would be perfect for me? i found few older versions. Which one was the most stable and fast?[/COLOR]


Thanks and thanks and thanks again,
Vlad

[kayak4ever]

GBPVR2 1.2.13, Yahoo! TV EPG installed and working (420 digital channels imported into GBPVR2). 1. Going to Guide take forever to refresh listings on monitor. My Russian channels at 251 position – and it take good 2 minutes for listing to refresh to that point.

Just checking - can you receive all 420 channels? If not, you can use the config to deselect the channels you either don't get or would never watch and this would shorten the time to load the tv guide. Whenever there is an update from your cable source, you may have the new channels added automatically depending on you epg source but that just means deleting the extras if you are not interested,

As to the version, I think the latest is typically the best. If you want\need to use gbpvr instead of pvrx2, I would suggest version 1.1.5 solely because it has the most amount of fixes for problems found in earlier versions.