MVP transcoding?

[dinki]

I am using an MVP with an OTA tv tuner that provides MPEG2 streams. I tried the MVP and found that HD streams did not play at all. I could hear bits of audio, but no video. SD streams did play, but audio was out of sync. I am using the version of the MVP dongle posted on the wiki with a wired network connection.

I've used the same MVP with SageTv and the hd streams did play fine, but they were transcoded to make their playback possible. Does the npvr dongle provide transcoding? Am I missing something? I've tried turning off 'high quality render' but it seems to automatically enable itself (setting doesn't stick). Can anyone offer any guidance? I'd like to use the MVP on one of the kids' tvs but won't be able to if it cannot play live tv.

Thanks

[mvallevand]

There is a config.xml setting you need to change

<TranscodeTsForMVP>true</TranscodeTsForMVP>

No idea how well it work with live tv.

Martin

[dinki]

Perfect. Thank you. I'll give it a try. Can you also tell me what 'high quality render' does and if I should/should not turn it off?

[mvallevand]

No basically I consider everything related to the MVP a waste of your time and mine and I probably should not have responded to the first post.

Martin

[dinki]

Martin, how do you really feel about the MVP? All kidding aside, I totally agree with you. I tend to hold on to old tech for a long time if it is still working. This is mainly due to my budget.

[mvallevand]

Martin, how do you really feel about the MVP? All kidding aside, I totally agree with you. I tend to hold on to old tech for a long time if it is still working. This is mainly due to my budget.

I love the MVP in fact on many sites I still use emveepee as my username. It was the second embedded linux box that I ever worked on and I had a tremendous amount of fun with it when it was relevant. People's budget are a concern, and I did my best to keep it going, with new dongles after Hauppauge dropped it, but there is also time to let go. I am not particularly satisfied recommending the RPi as a client, but for $60 or so it is far better than the MVP.

Martin

[dinki]

Martin, I do have a RPi and I did attempt to use it as an XBMC frontend to NPVR, but I've sunk so much money into it trying different things to make it stable. I've tried a handful of SD cards and power supplies and never found the right combination. I even bought an 'official' power supply that mostly worked until one day it just stopped outputting power. We do not have any weird power fluctuations here so I don't know what to attribute the failure of that device to. Needless to say, I've spent quite a bit of time and money trying to get it to work with very limited results. Perhaps I have a faulty unit, but I will probably continue trying to make it work and will continue to get frustrated with it. I know a few people that have them and they work great for them.

[mvallevand]

I did say I was reluctant to recommend the RPi (and that applies many Android solutions), but as bad as it is, the MVP will likely cause you just as much grief and you won't ever be able to get it back to its former glory.

Martin

[sub]

The MVP was decent device back in the days when everybody was using analog TV tuners. Unfortunately it's way dated now, and a terrible device for dealing with modern streams coming from digital devices. You could get by with one if you're still analog tuners. If you've updated to digital, you'd be better off looking for some other playback device.

[dinki]

@Martin, I wasn't meaning to come off like a jerk. I was just sharing my frustration with the RPi. It seems to be great for many people, but for me it is/was just a headache. That said, I will probably work on it more so I can at least get something out of my investment. My budget is pretty much nonexistent and I have the old Robin Leech 'champagne wishes and caviar dreams' when it comes to PVR stuff

@Sub, I've been using an MVP as the bedroom client for SageTV for many years. While it is really slow in the gui, video playback is acceptable for both SD and HD streams. SageTV transcodes the HD streams so I'm hoping that changing the NPVR setting to transcode for MVP will offer similar results. I realize it's a trade off between finding a modern solution and saving money, but I guess I'll give it a chance to see what happens.