New User having some problems

[Nnyan]

Hello,

I'm new to GB-PVR after giving up on MythTV. Here's what I'm running/setup:

I have Comcast Digital Cable in the Sacramento CA area.
WinXP Pro
Hauppauge PVR-500
Shuttle AN35N Ultra NF2 Mobo
Nvidia FX5200 w/ svideo out
Athlon XP 3200+
3/Mb DSL

I've installed GB-PVR and following the quick start guide I've run into a few issues/questions:

1. EPG
This takes forever to update (I'm talking about over an hour) in total, the download takes about 10-15mins and then it processes the listings for the rest of the time). In Linux this took only seconds to populate. I've tried this several times.

2. Once this is done I am missing some channels (EX: 5-13 etc...). If I take a look at my Zap2it account they are all there).

3. TVGUIDE
For the most part this is empty. If I scroll through it I am able to find 2-3 listings that actually display. I can also run into a few that will not "display" in the TVGUIDE window but a description will pop up as if there is something there that is not showing. I've removed and add sources several times and the same thing happens.

My date/time are NIST sync'd and are accurate.

4. Does GB-PVR automatically use the svideo out on my 5200 or do I need to set that up (and how)?

5. Do I have to worry about resolution when I hook up my PVR to my TV (MythTV you had to be very careful about using 720x480 or risk damaging your TV).

Thank you in advance!

[sub]

1) Just be patient. Its only the first update that is slow. Subsequent updates will only take a minute or so. (Its only with zap2it... XMLTV doesnt have this problem)

2) EVERYtime this has come up in the past, it has been user misconfiguring zap2it, or zap2it not supplying listings for these channels temporarily. Check your channel lineup at http://labs.zap2it.com

3) Sounds like zap2it isn't providing all the listings at the moment for some reason. GB-PVR will only ask for new date ranges, so if you want to try and reload these times you already have, you'll need to do an 'Empty EPG'.

4) You need to set that up. How? I have no idea, I dont have one of these cards.

5) I dont know. It probably depends on what type of television you have, and what types of signals it will accept.

[Darx-starz]

Hello,

I'm new to GB-PVR after giving up on MythTV. Here's what I'm running/setup:

I have Comcast Digital Cable in the Sacramento CA area.
WinXP Pro
Hauppauge PVR-500
Shuttle AN35N Ultra NF2 Mobo
Nvidia FX5200 w/ svideo out
Athlon XP 3200+
3/Mb DSL

I've installed GB-PVR and following the quick start guide I've run into a few issues/questions:

4. Does GB-PVR automatically use the svideo out on my 5200 or do I need to set that up (and how)?

5. Do I have to worry about resolution when I hook up my PVR to my TV (MythTV you had to be very careful about using 720x480 or risk damaging your TV).

Thank you in advance!

I will try and take 4 and 5 as I have a 5200 myself. So do a lot of others around here. Its a popular card. The FX5200 comes in many flavours and will depend on what you have. You need to install the latest drivers and set the tvout specificly for your region. I suspect you are in an NTSC area so you need to set the tvout for NTSC. I would leave the card at 800X600 and the hardware will resize it for your local. You can set it for 720X480@60HZ if you want. You wont blow your TV up by having the wrong res. You can set the card for 1024X768 if you want and the picture will stay the same.

Set gbpvr up as software decode and it will just display it on the local screen and the tvout.

[Nnyan]

Thank you both for taking the time to answer my questions!

sub,
1. I'll be more patient with the zap2it service, at least I know thats normal now!

2. I've checked the channel lineup and it looks fine. I'll hope that this is a temp thing. Does it hurt if I manually add these channels or will I have dupes when this gets "updated" by zap2it?

3. I'm thinking since I started with MythTV then switched over to GB-PVR I'm not getting the full listings (as you stated) in the TVGUIDE part. I've created a new zap2it account and I'll try that when I get home.

4. I had a brain fart, working with MythTV for the last week or so I totally forgot to even THINK about the Nvidia drivers and doing some config there. Mea Culpa!

5. Ok good to know, so what I'm getting is that I can have the desktop at 800x600 or 1024x768 and it doesn't really matter, TV out on the 5200 will be a 720x480.

I hate to add to my litany of questions but will I be able to record Comcast premium channels like HBO? Does it matter how I hook the PVR up? Ex. Should I use a spliter and split the signal prior to the cable box or is it OK to feed the signal to the PVR after the comcast cable box?

Thanks!

[sub]

2) if you do this, there will be no way to remove the channels later without removing and re-adding the capture sources, and will probably lead to dupes unless you get the name 100% the same (case/spelling etc). If you happy to do this, then it's no problem.

I hate to add to my litany of questions but will I be able to record Comcast premium channels like HBO?

I'm not sure if these are transmitted "in the clear" on your cable network. If they're encrypted or are a digital transmission, you wont be able to recieve them through your tuner, and you'll need to connect you cablebox to the the PVR card if you want to watch these channels.

[Nnyan]

I believe a good portion will be digital, but as long as I can connect the PVR to the cable box I'm golden.

Thanks!

[Nnyan]

Ok so I got home and fiddled witht he Nvidia settings (I eventually had to click the "force detection of TV" and after a reboot I was able to see the windows boot screen with NP.

<edit>
Ok switched to the Nvidia MCE Drivers and I got my desktop displayed.

[Nnyan]

Ok, switched to Nvidia's MCE driver and now I get my desktop on my TV! = ) My TV Guide portion is filled and it looks like it has all the channels (will do a better survey later).

Now the issue I have is that when I tried to record or watch live tv I got the error "no capture sourcewas setup/configured to record/watch this show".

With the PVR-500 do I need to setup two capture sources (one for each tuner)? I'm not sure where I'm going wrong here since the capture source

[Nnyan]

Ok after trying to setup another source to see if that helped any I'm getting the following error when i attempt to view live TV "Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object". Only option is OK to quit.

Removing the 2nd source didn't help.

I can now "record" but all I'm recording is static. I'm also not getting any sound, and i'm not sure how to wire this so I get sound via the TV. I've wired from my VCR and Cable box to both inputs in the PVR-500 but still no dice. If anyone could guide me through this that would be awesome!

Just to make sure I was sane I downloaded and installed the 21 day version of BeyondTV. Don't like the interface all that much but I have to hand it to them inside 10mins I was able to view live tv and record (still no sound).

One thing I did notice during the setup was that they asked you what channel you output on (ch 4 for me). I don't see anywhere to set that on GB-PVR.

[stefan]

One thing I did notice during the setup was that they asked you what channel you output on (ch 4 for me). I don't see anywhere to set that on GB-PVR.

Output? Are you talking about which channel your box "broadcasts" on? If so, then in the config app, where you setup the Capture source, you choose settings for Recording Source, then Source should be set to "Fixed Channel, External Tuner", then you should be allowed to set "Constant Channel" to 4.