PVR150 component input playback problem- not GBPVR related - happens in MCE too

[rcs914]

Hi Folks-

I'm yet another newbie at the "do it yourself" PVR thing, but I've been reading lots here at the forum. Yesterday I bought and installed a PVR150MCE card in my old HP dual core athlon machine with XP MCE, currently running SP3. Installation of the card, and GBPVR (following the install guide PDF) was straightforward. As I don't currently have an s-video cable I used the component out from my comcast STB into the component in on the pvr150, and then 9-pin video out from the computer to the TV.

Here's the issue - when I either select live TV, or try to record a program, I get video that plays for about half a second, then flashes to black screen, then video, then black screen, etc etc. The GBPVR channel changer overlay will display with no problem.

After trying lots of different combos on the playback menu with no difference, as well as recording part of a program and getting the same result, I decided to see if it was an issue with with GBPVR or if it was outside of that. I fired up Media Center, and pulled up the TV portion. While I wasn't able to get it all the way set up since I didn't have an IR blaster yet, I was able to get the preview window, and the video was doing the exact same thing - it will play for .5 to 1 second, flash to black for at least a second, then back to video, black, video, black etc etc. While the video is playing, it is smooth on the screen, not choppy. I did not yet have audio set up, so I can't state if this was working or not.

As this isn't an issue with GB-PVR directly I didn't feel comfortable posting it in the support forum, but I'm hoping that someone else may have a pointer as to what may be wrong with the video. I've googled just about everything I can think of regarding the PVR-150 and flashing or blinking video, and even went to searching just for tuners having that problem. I've come up with no one discussing the issue as I'm experiencing it.

I really appreciate any assistance anyone here can render. I'm going to pick up a S-video cable tonight to see if that makes any difference, but I'm certainly not having luck with component right now.

The one thing I've not yet tried is replacing the decoder. There are two on my system currently, including the cyberlink one included, as well as one for muvee (no idea what this is, it was on the box when I got it) and neither of these made a difference.

Thanks,

Chris

[nitrogen_widget]

have you tried just recording video & looking at the video to determine if it's your PVR 150 or your system setup?

[rcs914]

Yep, tried that too. The recording has the same video "flashes". I had read that a couple other peoples problems were only when viewing live tv, but had no problems recording. This was not the case for me.

Chris

[nitrogen_widget]

Have you tried wintv that came with the card?
Have you tried the coax input?

[Jaggy]

What have you tried viewing the recording on? Have you tried one of the players that have built in codecs like VLC or media player classic?

[rcs914]

I don't have the WinTV software - the card came bare as it was likely pulled from another computer. It is the MCE edition, so it has component in, s-video in and coax in. I currently don't have a way of testing the coax - it is analog and I have digital comcast cable. I don't think I can plug the coax in directly - I'm pretty sure that comcast requires a STB.

I recorded the program with GBPVR, and tried to watch it through GBPVR as well. As this recording exhibited the same behavior as when I viewed the live stream through either gbPVR or Media Center.

I would be happy to post a youtube video so that people can see exactly what I mean.

Chris

[ElihuRozen]

Even though you have digital cable, you probably have your local channels available in analog from the coax. (Also, your STB probably has coax output, but I had problems when I tried using that on mine.)

Did you try hooking the coax directly to the TV & scanning to see if you get any analog channels. They would be the numbers without a period or dash - in my case I get 2,4,5,7, etc as analog, but 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1, etc. as digital from the coax. Did you try asking a neighbor if they have analog channels on their TV from the coax?

[rcs914]

I can disconnect the stb and try the coax input tonight. I still don't have an S-video cable, so that may be the best option for testing tonight.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll let you know what happens :-)

Chris

[rcs914]

Ok, so I tried S-video (but didn't get a chance to try raw coax yet) and the same issue occurs. I've made a short video and uploaded it to youtube so you can see whats happening. The audio is fine, the video is the only thing having a problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWhGxzJ_3tM

Chris

[stustunz]

ok now record a clip from the card and upload the clip
need to figure out if its a file issue or a playback

or play it back on vlc on the pc monitor (not tv)
almost looks like the output or the tv is set to pal or ntsc when its meant to be the other