2011-02-08, 05:18 PM
There's a refurbished computer store about 10 minutes from my place and when I was there last, I saw a ATI 650 card for $40 and I thought what the heck why don't I see how hard it is to set up a PVR? At the same store they had a 4-bay ATSC antenna for $20 which had been tempting me anyway since I was only on typical indoor antenna, so I bought the two for under $70 with tax.
I got home, renamed my npvr.db3 just in case, powered off the PC, installed the card rebooted and after a longish 15 minutes of plug and play installation of the card drivers and rebooted I was ready to try the next step. I didn't even bother installing the ATI software.
After the reboot there was a bit of frustration with all kinds or warning from Microsoft update and my antivirus about being out-of date. After a bit of annoying trouble shotting I found my BIOS reset during the install and it was 2006 again. One more reboot.
I started up NextPVR and clicked the config and under devices ATI ATSC, QAM and Analog source were detected automatically. I clicked ATSC, did the scan with the defaults and five minutes later our local 6 HD channels showed up nicely. It had found two stations I was not able to get before on the other antenna.
Next onto the EPG setup. As a test, I thought I'd see what the ATSC data looked like. At 2 minutes per station it isn't quick but at the end I did have a fully functional PVR. If you scheduled this for the middle of the night, it wouldn't be too much of an issue.
I also tried the optional step of getting real guide data. I was already using whurlston's great MCE tool and it turned out be trivial, I created a 6 channel input file and 30 seconds later I had an XMLTV file. Most users will do the same thing by clicking on the stations they want in Schedules Direct but it's not difficult. After creating the XMLTV file I went back to the NPVR config and did the channel mapping, only 1 of the 6 was automatically detected so it took a few minutes to do the mapping. I did mix up OMNI1 and OMNI2 in the XMLTV guide with their broadcast call letters so I did have to remap and update the guide data again.
Finally I connected a PCH and LiveTV just worked. However when I connected a second PCH, multi-rec didn't work, so I made a post and within minutes sub had posted a patch on the forums. I was then able to watch LiveTV @ 1080i on 3 PCH's and my PC simultaneously. At $105 a room I can't imagine a cheaper multi-room solution.
Since then I have watched many hours of ATSC broadcast, without the pixelization and dropped recordings I had before. I am 100% satisfied with this system for our local broadcasts. The digital transition is August and there will be more than twice as many stations then, now I'm ready.
This whole process confirmed what I knew, NextPVR is ready. Adding this capability that to my already working HD-PVR (which is really easy to setup with working XMLTV file), I think I have a dynamite HD setup. During all this time I couldn't think of a better way for sub to do things more, the jump from GBPVR to NPVR had the improvements in scanning and mapping. I had hoped that it would be faster but I think it will take patience and an hour when you know what you are doing. I saved some time because my PC was already working, and I use PCH's and don't worry about client issues, decoders or renders most of the time so I expect new users will need much more time and patience. If you have any technical skills the rewards are worth it.
Lessons learned.
1. a good ATSC antenna is really important.
2. get your station call letters right before mapping
3. ATSC guide data is better than I expected but definitely usable, but it is nowhere near as complete as the data you can get from Schedules Direct.
4. NextPVR is ready for primetime
Martin
I got home, renamed my npvr.db3 just in case, powered off the PC, installed the card rebooted and after a longish 15 minutes of plug and play installation of the card drivers and rebooted I was ready to try the next step. I didn't even bother installing the ATI software.
After the reboot there was a bit of frustration with all kinds or warning from Microsoft update and my antivirus about being out-of date. After a bit of annoying trouble shotting I found my BIOS reset during the install and it was 2006 again. One more reboot.
I started up NextPVR and clicked the config and under devices ATI ATSC, QAM and Analog source were detected automatically. I clicked ATSC, did the scan with the defaults and five minutes later our local 6 HD channels showed up nicely. It had found two stations I was not able to get before on the other antenna.
Next onto the EPG setup. As a test, I thought I'd see what the ATSC data looked like. At 2 minutes per station it isn't quick but at the end I did have a fully functional PVR. If you scheduled this for the middle of the night, it wouldn't be too much of an issue.
I also tried the optional step of getting real guide data. I was already using whurlston's great MCE tool and it turned out be trivial, I created a 6 channel input file and 30 seconds later I had an XMLTV file. Most users will do the same thing by clicking on the stations they want in Schedules Direct but it's not difficult. After creating the XMLTV file I went back to the NPVR config and did the channel mapping, only 1 of the 6 was automatically detected so it took a few minutes to do the mapping. I did mix up OMNI1 and OMNI2 in the XMLTV guide with their broadcast call letters so I did have to remap and update the guide data again.
Finally I connected a PCH and LiveTV just worked. However when I connected a second PCH, multi-rec didn't work, so I made a post and within minutes sub had posted a patch on the forums. I was then able to watch LiveTV @ 1080i on 3 PCH's and my PC simultaneously. At $105 a room I can't imagine a cheaper multi-room solution.
Since then I have watched many hours of ATSC broadcast, without the pixelization and dropped recordings I had before. I am 100% satisfied with this system for our local broadcasts. The digital transition is August and there will be more than twice as many stations then, now I'm ready.
This whole process confirmed what I knew, NextPVR is ready. Adding this capability that to my already working HD-PVR (which is really easy to setup with working XMLTV file), I think I have a dynamite HD setup. During all this time I couldn't think of a better way for sub to do things more, the jump from GBPVR to NPVR had the improvements in scanning and mapping. I had hoped that it would be faster but I think it will take patience and an hour when you know what you are doing. I saved some time because my PC was already working, and I use PCH's and don't worry about client issues, decoders or renders most of the time so I expect new users will need much more time and patience. If you have any technical skills the rewards are worth it.
Lessons learned.
1. a good ATSC antenna is really important.
2. get your station call letters right before mapping
3. ATSC guide data is better than I expected but definitely usable, but it is nowhere near as complete as the data you can get from Schedules Direct.
4. NextPVR is ready for primetime
Martin
