MVP and NextPVR restrictions

[McBainUK]

I'm having a bit of a January clearance (like many others I guess), and trying to decide if I should keep my Hauppauge MVP which I bought from these very forums many years ago.

I'm looking through some old threads and trying to find out the restirctions.

The MVP is an old device, and only capable of playing standard definition video. Its only really well suited to old-school analog recording.


That said, if you set <TranscodeTsForMVP> to true, and have a fast server, then you might get lucky, but will have to watch every recording from beginning, with no ability to skip around in the file.

It's this still true? MVP and NextPVR:
- has no Live TV
- recordings can work but only with transcode and no resume or skip
- limited format playback options (eg only mpg, no AVI, Mp4 etc).

If that's the case, it's really only good for TV guide scheduling, recordings management, and an MP3 music player....

[sub]

It's been years since I used an MVP, but my understand of it is as follows (assuming you're running mvpmc dongle.bin):

It's this still true? MVP and NextPVR:
- has no Live TV

You can watch live tv, but only standard definition PAN/NTSC video with MPEG1 Layer II. ie, like content you'd get out of an analog card, or Freeview in the UK over DVB-T.

- recordings can work but only with transcode and no resume or skip

You can watch recordings, and skip around, and resume etc, but only only standard definition PAN/NTSC video with MPEG1 Layer II. Other types of file need to transcode on the fly, so no skipping etc.

- limited format playback options (eg only mpg, no AVI, Mp4 etc).

The MVP hardware is only capable of play standard def MPEG1/MPEG2 video streams, or MP3 music files. Anything else needs to be transcoded to one of these formats.

[Astraeus]

As sub said above, it should all work! Speaking from my experience, as you're in the UK (like me), I imagine you're either using Freeview or hooked up to a Sky/Virgin box via analogue (component/composite/s-video), which are mpeg and in both cases the MediaMVP can play the Live TV perfectly fine with no transcoding needed as long as you're using the mvpmc dongle - this is exactly the setup I'm using. The same applies to recordings.

For other video files you may have, NPVR automatically transcodes them on the fly to mpg and feeds that to the MVP using ffmpeg (which can pretty much handle anything thrown at it). I've had no problems streaming 1080p h264 m4v files (obviously they go down to SD for the MVP, but they work). Just pick the video file like any other from the video library, and while your CPU will have a bit of extra activity for a bit while it transcodes (faster than realtime, so finishes fairly quickly), it just works. Used to be a struggle on ancient old CPUs, on modern ones (particularly dual core/quad core these days) it's not a problem at all and barely noticeable!

Once set up, you can watch live TV, recordings and pretty much any media you have accessible on the MVP - so I'd say definitely not worth tossing away, plenty of life in them yet (thanks to NPVR!)

[ACTCMS]

...so I'd say definitely not worth tossing away, plenty of life in them yet (thanks to NPVR!)

I've got four of them on long-term R&R leave - I just withdrew the fourth one from the front line last week when an A110 suddenly appeared from the attic to replace the MVP in the lounge - actually, Mrs ACTCMS was away on urgent family business and it seemed like a good time to make infrastructure changes

As a UK DVB-T user, I'll be keeping them in reserve a bit longer - thanks go to sub and Martin for the effort put in to support such an old device (a bit like how my wife and family keep me going )

Alex

[McBainUK]

Pleasantly surprised the old thing still has a good range of functionality for me. Good work guys and thanks for the info!

Will keep hold of it. Now to get rid of the VCR player I just found....

[ACTCMS]

Now to get rid of the VCR player I just found....

That might seem like a good idea right now, but what are you going to do in a couple of months time when someone asks you if you can digitise some VHS tapes for them...

Alex

[McBainUK]

That might seem like a good idea right now, but what are you going to do in a couple of months time when someone asks you if you can digitise some VHS tapes for them...

I will send them to Scotland - thanks for offering

[mvallevand]

Yes, thanks Alex. Does your service support Beta and SVHS too? Oh and I need NTSC.

Martin

[ACTCMS]

Be warned - I don't come cheap...

Alex

[steeb]

Be warned - I don't come cheap...

Alex

Experience costs! What is a VCR? Can I get it to wash my dishes?

On a serious note apparently in the UK old video tapes are now clogging up landfill as everyone dumps them! And being a late 70's all 80's and up to mid 90's thing not made to be recyclable?

Following on from McBainUK's question I seem to have lost Martin's last MVPMC dongle which I believe was dated around Dec 2011 and if anyone has it I will use it and make sure I save it again to a safe server!

cheers

steeb