Avermedia A188B

[jfabernathy]

I used to run Windows MCE on Windows 7 with 2 Avermedia capture cards. The A188B card doesn't even register on Windows 10. It's now under the hidden devices and is grayed out. Says to reconnect to the computer. I've tried it in 2 different slots, so I'm guessing it's a driver problem going to Win 10.

So 2 questions, can I get this card to work in Win 10 and if I do, will it work in NextPVR?

[Graham]

... can I get this card to work in Win 10 and if I do, will it work in NextPVR?

The "standard" driver mechanism for Windows is BDA ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_...chitecture ... NextPVR should work with any device that has BDA drivers.

So ... if you find a driver that works in Win 10 and it's a BDA driver ... the tuner will work with NextPVR ... but we see a lot of posts in the forum about Avermedia devices ... I suspect that Avermedia devives are slightly eccentric.

[jfabernathy]

It's an old card, the latest drivers I have are Windows 7. I even clicked on the update drivers button on the Device Manager for Win 10 and it said I was running the latest, but my system still has it grayed out as not connected. Resetting the system didn't help. I may just have to forget using Windows 10 as my HTPC.

When I found out MCE was going away in Win 10, I built a Mythtv box with a Hauppauge HVR 2250 I had laying around and recently added a HDHomerun Connect. So I have a good solution, but now I have an extra PC running in my Media room. My dilemma is do I move all the tuner hardware to my Windows 10 PC and run NextPVR? I was going to use my old MCE win7 hardware as a month long test before making my choice, but now.....

[Graham]

My dilemma is do I move all the tuner hardware to my Windows 10 PC and run NextPVR?

No dilemma ... switch to NextPVR ... not that I am biased by my ten years of successful use of NextPVR

[jfabernathy]

No dilemma ... switch to NextPVR ... not that I am biased by my ten years of successful use of NextPVR

So maybe you can answer some questions for me:

1. If I'm running NextPVR on my Windows 10 gaming and HTPC box, can I use Kodibuntu (Kodi on Ubuntu) on a different PC on the same local network to watch what NextPVR records?
2. Since I have a SchedulesDirect account for mythtv will that give me the schedules for NextPVR?

[BrettB]

So maybe you can answer some questions for me:

1. If I'm running NextPVR on my Windows 10 gaming and HTPC box, can I use Kodibuntu (Kodi on Ubuntu) on a different PC on the same local network to watch what NextPVR records?
2. Since I have a SchedulesDirect account for mythtv will that give me the schedules for NextPVR?

#1: Yes. You basically have 2 options. You can use the Kodi built-in DVR support with sub's add-on to just use NextPVR as the recording back-end. And/or, you can use Martin's X-NEWA to get the full NextPVR interface on Kodi. Kodi's support is limited, so you do not get all of the features of NextPVR. Therefore, I've been using X-NEWA very successfully for a while now and am quite happy with it.

#2: I'm pretty sure the answer is also yes. As long as you have a valid SechedulesDirect subscription with a username and password, you should be able to use it with NextPVR. Plus, it will give the best data and be easy to setup.

[BrettB]

It's an old card, the latest drivers I have are Windows 7. I even clicked on the update drivers button on the Device Manager for Win 10 and it said I was running the latest, but my system still has it grayed out as not connected. Resetting the system didn't help. I may just have to forget using Windows 10 as my HTPC.

When I found out MCE was going away in Win 10, I built a Mythtv box with a Hauppauge HVR 2250 I had laying around and recently added a HDHomerun Connect. So I have a good solution, but now I have an extra PC running in my Media room. My dilemma is do I move all the tuner hardware to my Windows 10 PC and run NextPVR? I was going to use my old MCE win7 hardware as a month long test before making my choice, but now.....

Since the HDHomerun Connect is a network tuner, you should be able to go ahead and install NextPVR on the Win 10 box and have it also use the Connect for testing. (Of course, MythTV and NextPVR can't both use the same tuner in the Connect at the same time, but one could be using 1 tuner while the other is using the other tuner concurrently.)

[jfabernathy]

Thanks for the help. Sounds like I need to find a rainy day to test all of this. Oh, wait, it's raining outside now. Later...

[jfabernathy]

Since the HDHomerun Connect is a network tuner, you should be able to go ahead and install NextPVR on the Win 10 box and have it also use the Connect for testing. (Of course, MythTV and NextPVR can't both use the same tuner in the Connect at the same time, but one could be using 1 tuner while the other is using the other tuner concurrently.)

Is the sharing of the HDHomeRun automatic? Can I configure MythTV to have both HDHomeRun tuners and also have NextPVR configured with both of them? If this is true, could I schedule Mythtv and NexttPVR to each record the same TV program at the same time?

[BrettB]

Is the sharing of the HDHomeRun automatic? Can I configure MythTV to have both HDHomeRun tuners and also have NextPVR configured with both of them? If this is true, could I schedule Mythtv and NexttPVR to each record the same TV program at the same time?

I'm not familiar with MythTV, so I can't speak to what it can or can't do.

However, with NextPVR, it will lock a tuner while in use, and if it tries to use a tuner which is locked by another system, it will attempt to use a different tuner. (I'm not 100% sure about this with the BDA drivers which I think that NextPVR uses with the Connect. I know that the BDA driver will automatically lock the tuner, but I seem to recall, that maybe NextPVR doesn't do the failover to another tuner if locked.)

Also, with NextPVR, you can disable individual tuners within the Connect. If you can do the same thing with MythTV, then you could just enable Tuner 0 for MythTV and Tuner 1 for NextPVR--thus eliminating any possibility of collision.