Two years later - The state of DIY HTPCs in the US

[daphatty]

As some of you may know, my wife and I moved to Indonesia about two years ago. This forced me to shelve my GBPVR box since it just wasn't practical to transition it over. Now that we are back in the US, the wife's first request was "I want you to build that Tivo thing we had before we left!" :eek:

So here comes my dilemma. I've kept up with hardware trends (relevant to the US anyway) but even with all the new options it seems like recording digital cable is still a PITA. After 24 months, are we still limited to IR Blasters and jury rigged software configs? I'm almost at the point of considering a cable card and a TiVo subscription but I hate the thought of having to pay subscription fees... Do you guys have any suggestions?

[zehd]

I think lots of people in the States are happy with clear QAM...

[soccerdad]

The most interesting posts to me lately have been getting firewire video and channel changing directly from a STB. I am still not clear how successful everyone is, but it looks like it has potential. If I understand it correctly, then you don't need tuners, blasters or anything. Otherwise, Clear QAM is very nice for the major networks an PBS, but generally will not get you any more.

[mikeh49]

For cable:

[INDENT]If you want SD recordings, then using the S-video out of the box into a GBPVR analog capture source is no problem. Channel changing can use either the Hauppauge IR blaster (works great for me) or firewire (requires more work, but seems to be OK)[/INDENT]

[INDENT]If you want HD recordings (and who doesn't ), then you can use the Haup HD-PVR from the the component outs of the box. This seems to work OK, but there are recent driver/decoder issues that don't seem to be fully resolved. You will still need either the blaster or firewire for channel changing.[/INDENT]

[INDENT]Firewire capture from the box is working pretty well for me, 90-95% reliability. Not quite ready for unattended wife use however. It uses the GraphRecorder plug in and is fully reliable and integrated within GBPVR. The issue is getting the right graph defined for capture, which seems to be somewhat machine dependent. Only the digital channels are available on the firewire port on my box. None are copy protected; I have Showtime, no HBO)[/INDENT]

[INDENT]My cable system (Charter in central Washington) has NO clear QAM channels.[/INDENT]

[INDENT]Solid HD playback requires modern dual core CPUs and current generation video cards (Nvidia 8xxx, ATI HD3xxx).[/INDENT]

I'm not sure if any of the firewire applies to satellite, e.g. DirectTV.

[gazoo]

Yeah, clearQAM leaves much to be desired. Mike, I'm curious as to which box (STB) you are using? I have a SciAtl 8400 (i think?) and I tried a quick test once with my laptop hooked into the firewire port and it was a mess. I don't think I had the correct drivers.

[mikeh49]

I have a Motorola DCT 64?? HD STB with DVI, component and 2 firewire outputs. This seems to be the box that the firewire development was done on. You have to combine the timmmoore and ex-deus instructions and drivers, but it all went right in for me, and worked the first time using the CapDVHS program. If you've used Graphedit, I think that's the fastest way to check if its working. Just get the AV/C panel device and render the pin(s), if I remember correctly. PM if you want any more specific info.

[gazoo]

I'm reading up on this now. Doesn't look good for my cable box, it's the one with alot of problems (SA8300HD)

[observer_11]

MikeH, can u post some noob links for the firewire channel changing and capture using the Motorola DCT 64XX ?

[mikeh49]

Here's the link to ExDeus info, which contains links to just about everything else.

http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/

I followed his install instructions and everything went fine in XP.

To use firewire capture in GBPVR, you need to use the GraphRecorder plugin. See the wiki and the plugins forum for info there. I recommend using Carpevideo's latest dll.

You need to use Graphedit (described in the wiki) to set up a graph to reference in graphedit. (Graphedit links GBPVR to a graph that you define, and it shows up as a capture source in the config app for GBPVR.) You put the graphedit grf file in the applicable config box of Graphrecorder (you only need to use the Graph A tab; I think there is lots of flexibility for using multiple graphs for various channels.)

You will need a capture graph if you want to record to a file, and a preview graph if you want to preview from the guide in GBPVR. The capture graph should contain:

Firewire tuner device -> TS parser -> MPEG2 demux -> MPEG2 mux -> GBPVR file writer using an mpg file extension.

I use the Nividia PureVideo app, so use the Nvidia TS parser, the MS MPEG2 demux, and the ATI MPEG2 mux.

The firewire drivers include the channel.exe app that can change channels via firewire. This was a bit erratic for me initially, so I went to the Hauppauge blaster and the Haupblast.exe channel changer which has worked fine. Not as elegant, however, with the blaster stuck on the front of the STB.

This whole thing works pretty well for me, but not perfect on my mediocre system. There is some variation from channel to channel, and YMMV depending on your cable provider and whether they have copy protection turned on.

I'm away from home at the moment, so this is about the best I can do. Just read everything, and it should come together.

[observer_11]

Thanks very much for the info MikeH. Seems like there is plenty of info available to get me started.