Noobie Help w/ Directv

[mototom]

I have a new Dell Vostro running a clean install of XP Pro fully updated and all Directx and C Runtime libraries installed. My capture device is an Angel MPEG USB unit.

This unit plays fine using Snappysoft and Cyberlink Power Cinema. It is connected to a DirecTV box via the S-Video connector.

All I am looking for is the ability to start/stop recording a program an a schedule. I'll take care of all tuning matters via the DirecTV box.

I am unable to get any audio or video to play though the Angel shows as the capture device and the S-Video is set as the connection. No channel changing required has been set.

I would really like to avoid paying $100 to Cyberlink for something that GB-PVR should do just fine. Any thoughts/directions?

TIA!

2 thing I forgot to mention ... I have searched every way I know in the Wiki and this forum for a 'recipe' for this without finding anything and
There is a message that comes up about channels not being set up but I am showing that a channel XML file has been assigned in the configuration utilty

[systemshark]

Hello,

Yes GBPVR will do this,but your going to be missing out on so much of the functionality.

you'll need to define a channel in the Config.exe program.

Assuming you have configured the card via the capture sources correctly, with the input of sVideo, then live TV should be working fine.

Open GBPVR or PVRX2 and select Live TV... you should see the video feed from your source.

Once that is working you'll want to record something. Create a 'manual' recording on your channel for a given time and press ok.

[mototom]

Thanks, Systemshark.

I plan on expanding things over time to take advantage of everything but first I want to see that I can watch TV using GB-PVR. Once that's done I know I'll go whole hog

I have defined 3 channels in the Channels tab. These relate to the channels on the DirecTV box though everything is coming into the Angel capture device via the S-Video cable.

Under the Capture Tab the Angel device is selected under Direct recording Plugin. EPG Plugin is None and no Channel changer required. The S-video External Tuner is selected.

Anything else you can think of?

Thanks again.

[sub]

Thats about it. What is going wrong exactly? Zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[mototom]

OK. Progress.

I've been working on the target machine using LogMeIn, a remote desktop tool and for some reason it was not showing me video. At lunchtime I went home to see what was going on.

I had audio and a still image. As I would change channels the image would change. Looks like a screen grab instead of video. I also noted that even though I had set the aspect ration to 16:9 for my widescreen monitor the 4:3 signal was being expanded to fill the screen. This also happened on a replay of a previously captured video that plays properly with VLC Media Player. So I rebooted to see if that made a difference. That was a step back.

First I got a message that the target had actively refused the connection so I changed the Recordings folder to a local drive and not a share on my server. That got rid of that message but now the screen is again dark. Now I'm back at work so little can be done until tonight.

I couldn't figure out how to attach my log files to either this or a PM to Sub so here's a link to them http://www.thevuelta.com/logs_1_Nov_07.zip

Again, Many thanks.

[sub]

I'm pretty sure this will just related to the video decoder you're using. We've seen it a few times in the past. Try explicitly selecting a decoder on the config app's playback tab rather than relying on 'system default'.

[mototom]

Sub,

I tried that last night and took a giant step backwards. Not only did GB-PVR stay dark and silent but my other capture apps that had been working went dark and silent as well.

Needless to say I was VERY unhappy. :mad:

After leaving the computer and making myself some dinner I did a system rollback to the day before and recovered motion and sound for the other apps.

I was irritated enough to uninstall GB-PVR thinking that this was too much trouble. Then on my way to finding this thread I saw another post about "hang in there". I think I will but ...

Can you suggest some easier way to protect against this kind of setback while I work to get GB-PVR running? I'm thinking of imaging the disk but that seems like overkill since I use this machine as my regular home production unit. The PVR function is not it's primary use but will become an important one.

I'm sure that somewhere in the registry there is a key that tells applications which codec is the default. What I was doing with GB-PVR Config must have fouled that up. I'm not afraid to work in the registry when I know what and where to look.

This is a steeper learning curve than I anticipated.

Thanks for all your help.

[sub]

I'm not quite sure what you're so stressed about, and what required a system rollback, steep learning curve etc. All I suggested was selecting a video decoder other than 'system default' from the list on the playback tab of the config app. If didnt work, it wouldnt have broken anything on your system - it doesnt change any registry settings or anything like that.

So what video decoder did you try selecting?

[mototom]

Sub,

First I really appreciate you help. I was trying to relay a series of events that left me in the dark and frustrated at the moment. That moment has passed. It was probably low blood sugar.

At any rate tonight I'll check out which decoder it was. I know there were three besides System Default to pick from.

One thing was clear, after making the change to it, my other capture apps quit working. Neither of them offer the choices that GB-PVR does and even reinstalling them didn't get them back. Only rolling back the system did.

[sub]

One thing was clear, after making the change to it, my other capture apps quit working. Neither of them offer the choices that GB-PVR does and even reinstalling them didn't get them back. Only rolling back the system did.

Sorry, but I have to call bollocks on that one. It doesnt change a single thing about your system when you select a different decoder on the playback tab of the config app. The only thing this does is change the <PreferredDecoder> setting in the config.xml text file. The only way this would affect any other app is if that app happened to be using GB-PVR's config.xml (which it isnt).

The only thing that reads this setting is GB-PVR when it needs to decide what MPEG2 decoder to use for something.