Switching Input Source within GB-PVR

[denkalicious]

This should be a rather easy question to answer, but I have spent at least an hour now going through the GB-PVR wiki and I can't find the proper solution.

I have a Happauge PVR150-MCE internal capture card in my box. I successfully set it up with the tv analog cable several months ago, and I have had zero trouble recording and watching shows.

Yesterday, I wanted to connect my camcorder to the 3 composite jacks on the tuner card in order to record old home movies and burn them onto dvd's. I realized that I didn't know how to tell GB-PVR to look at the camcorder jacks instead of the analog cable jack to do the recording.

For the life of me I can't figure out how to switch the source for the recording, or even just to be able to watch the input from the 3 composite jacks. I have included a screenshot of the settings I have for capture sources within the GB-PVR config.

I have two capture sources being used. One is my old one which works fine ( the analog jack ), the second is the new one I am trying to implement which is shown in the picture.

Any light people could shed on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[sub]

Yesterday, I wanted to connect my camcorder to the 3 composite jacks on the tuner card in order to record old home movies and burn them onto dvd's. I realized that I didn't know how to tell GB-PVR to look at the camcorder jacks instead of the analog cable jack to do the recording.

GB-PVR isnt really the best app for this sort of task, but if you really want to do it...

Just create another capture source for the device. Set the EPG to 'none', set the input source to 'composite', and manually create a channel called 'AV1' or 'Composite'. It'll then be available as a channel. GB-PVR doesnt do this by default because lots of users use external set top cable boxes etc, so this would be at odds with what they'd need to setup.

[denkalicious]

GB-PVR isnt really the best app for this sort of task

Can you recommend a better app I can use to record video from the card?

[sub]

For dubbing tapes from a VCR or camcorder, I'd probably just use something like the Hauppauge WinTV software.

[flyswatta]

I use this method for recording digital channels and on-demand channels. The trick is to do a "manual recording" and select the fake channel (AVI or Composite) that sub mentioned earlier. If I wanted to record from Camcorder or VHS tape, I could easily just plugin the video and audio from those devices into my card and record.

[HillBoy]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here. I followed Sub's directions and created the fake channel but I can't select it off the Guide to tune into the Composite feed. If I try to use the Manual Recording option, I can't start or stop recording at will nor can I set the amount of time GB-PVR will record which sort of defeats my purpose. I suspect that I may need to use the keystrokes but I'm not sure. What I need is the ability to tune into the composite channel, start and stop recording from a VCR at will.

Sub says to use the bundled software that came with your card for this but if you have an ATI T550P card, the bundled software is the unbelievably crappy Cyberlink Power Cinema which also doesn't allow recording from a composite source. I also tried WinDVD Creator which pulled up a video signal from the composite input but without sound due to the ATI AV Unified driver. I did a bit of investigation and on the HEXUS board, I discovered that the latest version of the ATI Multimedia Center (MMC) v9.14 will work with the T550P chipset cards. However, this is no solution because as many of you already know, the MMC software suffers from severe problems. The two biggest problems are the reason why I dropped my AIW card and switched to an Nvidia + MSI solution video solution.

First, MMC turns on TV On Demand by default which turns your PC into a TIVO where the HD is constantly grinding away while the video quality of the TV signal is severely degraded. I love GB-PVR because it works as advertised without this unecessary side effect. Second, MMC suffers from the Macrovision bug that ATI has had for 2+ years now. This bug treats all VHS tapes as Macrovision encoded even ones you made with home VCRs or Camcorders which means that you cannot convert VHS tapes to MPEG format for burning to DVDs. I tried passing the TV signal through the VCR and tuning to channel 3 on GB-PVR but the sound was severely degraded and out of sync with the video signal. That's why I need to use the breakout box and the composite input. So I guess that I'm back to square one which really sucks. Ideas anyone?

[fuzzweed]

OK, first off the 'fake' channel method should work fine - and IMO GBPVR is fine for dubbing from video etc. I agree with you that bundled software in universally shite!

When you say you can't select it from the guide - do you mean it isn't there at all? Or it's there but you can't highlight it? If it's the latter just watch the next channel and then surf 1 channel up (or down) from live TV.

All the rest is as sub said, but just to repeat in a step-by-step:

In config, capture sources tab -
Create capture source, name it AV1 (or whatever).
Recording source = direct recording plugin.
Click 'settings' and select your card, country, board number (probably #1), and then make sure you select the correct source (probably composite 1 but it is be worth trying other options if you don't get the correct results).The 'tuning' box should grey out.
OK all of that.
EPG source = none
Channel changer = not required

If you OK all of this and restart GBPVR you should now have an extra channel in the guide called AV1 (obviously with no program infomation). Get something playing through the composite input, surf to that channel and you should be able to view your video - press record, and you're away.
If this still doesn't work it may be a deeper issue with how GBPVR works with your hardware - I know I had to do a bit of tweeking and patching to get my HVR1300 up and running first time round - but now all is well!
hope this helps.

[HillBoy]

Thanks for the quick response. I did exactly as you have described. GB-PVR assigns channel 1 for the new Composite channel but I can't seem to get it to tune in on channel 1 which is why I thought I'd done something wrong. Will keep working at it.

[sub]

If you start live tv, then click Ctrl-G to bring up the mini-guide, can you scroll up or down to your channel, then press enter?

[HillBoy]

Doh! I got it working. All I needed to do was just that (a classic case of overthinking). Once I start getting the video from the new VCR channel, I pressed Ctrl-K and manually started recording from VHS tape. It worked to perfection! I got a clear crisp MPEG from a VHS source encoded into MPEG2 format with sound ready for transfer to DVD with none of that Macrovision foolishness I was getting from ATI's MMC. This program is the bomb! I've been trying to do this for over 2 years with ATI's AIW & MMC to no avail. Now I can finally transcode all of those rapidly deteriorating VHS tapes. Many thanks! :o