Quake3World

Picked up a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 last night. So far I've been able to get it to play all the basic cable channels, and tinkered with recording/pausing TV. It works pretty well. I need to go back out and get an S-Video cable, though (I think that's what I need?), because I can't get all my other channels (about 400 of them).

Also, I've got a question. Should I use the preset compression options that the card offers for keeping filesizes to a reasonable level, or should I record at high quality and then use a 3rd party proggie to compress them? If the latter, what should I use? I know there's one out there that'll let me crop out segments (read: commercials) and do a bit of minor editing as well as reduce the filesize by a huge amount. I used it a few times in the past, but forgot the name of it.

a 30 minute show into around a 200mb avi should look good for TV Playback (though it depends what it is).

u shouldnt need the s-vid cable..

just run a channel scan and it should pick em all up, it did for my friend who has 600+ channels

SoM wrote:u shouldnt need the s-vid cable..

just run a channel scan and it should pick em all up, it did for my friend who has 600+ channels

SOM's right for once, Svid has nothing to do with the amount of channels you're getting.

but, why the hell WOULDN'T you get an Svid cable?? quality difference over a composite cable is night and day. add to that, they're cheap as hell.

oh, and reply to this:

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:

Transient wrote:

riddla wrote:I'd probably eat beef again, little risk of mad cow this way.

Mad cow disease is bullshit.

oh, let's hear this one

I was just being a smartass. I think if forgot a smiley. :icon32:

BTW I still can't get the channels working. Hmm, I think maybe I have something plugged in wrong...
Here's a diagram of the spiderweb in back of my desk:



The A/B switch allows me to watch extended cable in the A position, which I can record things on the VCR with, then switch over to the B position to watch basic cable at the same time. Currently the cable going from the A/B switch to the splitter is missing, as I didn't have enough cables. I forgot to pick one up while I was out. :/
I also need to get a 4-way splitter, as I'm using a 3-way ATM.

Can someone at least tell me whether that SHOULD work?
I can get all the basic cable stations, but nothing from extended cable (channels 126-900+).

so when you're watching from your pc, is that signal being routed through your vcr?

if so, that might be your problem.

wire that tuner card straight to the cable box and i bet it works. process of elimination.

there must be some setting for this that you missed in the pvr control panel?

Alright, I unplugged the VCR from the bakc of the cable box and ran the TV Tuner card straight to the cable box. Now I only get channel 3, but it displays whatever channel I change it to on the TV guide. So now I use my regular cable TV remote, not the WinTV remote. :lol:

So I guess what I need to do is get a 2-way splitter and run the VCR in with the TV Tuner card into the back of the cable box.

yeah, iirc, vcr tuners only go up to about 120-127 or some crap.

Crap, no audio. I forgot about that... Hmm...
Connecting a stereo audio cable from the audio out on the cable box to the line in on the tuner card doesn't work. WTF, work you stupid thing!
edit: nvm, it was just quiet

Transient wrote:Crap, no audio. I forgot about that... Hmm...
Connecting a stereo audio cable from the audio out on the cable box to the line in on the tuner card doesn't work. WTF, work you stupid thing!

iirc the audio out from tuner should go into the line in on soundcard

Ya, SoM, I did that and got perfect audio, but it was constant. Even when I wasn't watching TV on the PC it could be heard. That, plus anything I would have recorded would have been mute I think.

At any rate, it's working. It was just really quiet (plus I had music playing).

make sure ur mixer settings are at full volume

Cheers, that helped a bit.

I'm off to Radio Shack to return this S-Video cable I don't need, plus the audio stereo cable. I'll pick up a splitter while I'm there so I can watch stuff on my regular TV set, too.

Most likely, channels 126+ are broadcast in "digital" or encoded so the Coax tuner on the PVR150 won't pick them up.
You can get them by running the S-Video cable from the cable box to the PVR150, but then that'll be a straight video signal. You'd have to switch inputs on the WinTV program (I assume thats what your using) and the channels will be tuned (changed) through the cable box and it's remote. The audio cables for this method should go into the PVR150 card. There are some registry hacks to adjust the volume the PVR150 encodes the audio at but I don't have the link on me and google is failing me right now. It's a common issue, I had to do it for my PVR250's.

Anyone know of a video compression proggie that'll let me crop out segments (read: commercials) and do a bit of minor editing as well as reduce the filesize by a huge amount? I used one a few times in the past, but forgot the name of it.
There's a specific one that I'm thinking of, but the name eludes me. *googles*

edit: I think I'm thinking of VirtualDub

Goddamnit, now I need an mpeg to avi converter, but none of the ones I can find are free...

edit: sorted

Be sure to test out DScaler. There is nothing quite like it.