Mediaportal and analogue TV

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tifoso

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#24551 27-Jul-2008 15:22

Hi,

I've got a HTPC that I've set up using WinXP Pro SP2, Media Portal and a HVR-4000 tv tuner card. Living in Whangarei I don't have access to DVB-T signal and I've decided not to spend the money and put in a Satellite dish for freeview. I have clear line of sight to the TV transmitter on Parahaki and the picture directly through my TV is really clear. We don't watch much TV these days so having access to more channels would be a waste of time really.

But I would like to be able to pick up the free to air channels via the analogue tuner on the HVR-4000 card. However when I tell MediaPortal to scan for channels it says "unable to create graph". MediaPortal picks up the HVR-4000 card and all the tuners available but I can't scan for channels.

So, can anyone point me to a simple howto guide for how to get the HVR-4000 analogue tuner to work in MediaPortal. Files to edit etc.

Cheers
Mike

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#151819 27-Jul-2008 15:43

Somebody might be able to correct me if this has changed in recent versions but last time I looked Media Portal had no support the for the analogue tuners on the HVR3000/HVR4000 cards as they had no onboard MPEG2 encoder. If you want analogue support you would be better off getting a 150MCE (which is actually cheaper than the HVR4000) and has an onboard MPEG2 encoder.

If you do want to use the HVR4000 for Analogue TV yhen WinTV will work fine.

tifoso

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#151847 27-Jul-2008 16:59

You'll have to excuse my ignorance but what is WinTV? Is it a software package? Originally I had a TV2000 card in my PC but when I dedicated the PC as a HTPC I found that the later versions of MediaPortal no longer supported the card. So based on the recommendations of the guys I worked with I got the HVR-4000 card.

Dingbatt

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#151862 27-Jul-2008 17:37

WinTV is the software that comes with cards like the Hauppauge HVR-3000, which is basically the same as your card without the DVB-S2 tuner. It is a PVR program and does an okay job of analogue and DVB-S (won't do DVB-T but that's not a problem for you). I think from memory you would have got something like power-cinema instead. You can download the software from the Hauppauge UK website (www.hauppauge.co.uk). They are up to something like CD4.6b for the software. You won't need the drivers but other components like WinTV2000 and SoftPVR may be needed (all are within the CD).

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

tifoso

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#151869 27-Jul-2008 18:03

Thanks for that. After writing my previous reply I did a google search and found the WinTV SW on the hauppauge.co.uk site. Yes it is up to 4.6b and I've downloaded it. Next thing is to install it.

With ref to the first response to my query I found this discussion on the Media Portal forums
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/1-0-rc1-svn-builds-270/no-analog-hauppauge-hvr-4000-a-41628/index2.html

With any luck the problem with the HVR-4000 analogue support may be fixed soon.

One of the reasons I'm not going with a Satellite dish for freeview is that DVB-T will eventually be broadcast in the provincial cities so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Whangarei is rolled out sometime soon. I'll still have to buy a UHF antennae as the house we bought doesn't have one - only the standard VHF antennae. So I'm not even watching Prime at the moment. But at least I can download the latest Top Gear episodes off the net.

Dingbatt

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#151883 27-Jul-2008 19:00

When I tried the analogue channels through WinTV I was massively underwhelmed. 4:3 aspect and pretty blurry. The difference you get from going satellite will likely be a revelation to you (clear and in widescreen). Dish, LNB, mount and cable can probably be got for about $150-200. I don't power my LNB from the tuner card, perhaps someone else can advise you on that.

And then you can use MediaPortal.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#152151 28-Jul-2008 18:04

Stay away from the Hauppuage software, it really is rubbish. Have you checked if GB-PVR works with this card. It may be your best bet.

If you really want Mediaportal, I would reocmmend to totally uninstall Mediaportal (I'm assuming you have an earlier version like RC1 1ithout any of the later SVN builds) & reinstall the recent RC2 version which may (or not) work.

You could also try to manually configure your channels. Go into MP TVServer config>TVChannels. Click the 'add' button. In the dialogue box that opens, type in channel name in box on 'general' tab. Open 'analogue' tab. Do the following, once for each channel:

'Channel' -see below
'Frequency' -probably left at 0 but as I understand it, may need to be changed depending on loacation: can't help there. It is default for Auckland.

'Input Type' -cable. Yeah, I know but it works for me.
'Country' -well, I think you can work that out ;-)
'Source' -tuner

PS. don't type eg. TV1=7: just the channel number eg. 7
TV1=7
TV2=63
TV3=76
C4=85
Sky Movies 1=188
Sky Sport 1=203
Triangle TV (AKL)=242
MaoriTV=251
The Box=284
Discovery=302
Juice=310
Prime=316
AltTV=325

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector

kiwijunglist

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#152737 30-Jul-2008 16:35

Agree with above post.

Either

1. Get a different analog card

2. Try Mediaportal RC2 and you have to manually add the channel frequencies (ie don't scan). Search the forums, as someone posted a website that lists the frequencies as the frequencies are different depending on which city you live in.

3. You could try different programs eg. GBPVR

Mike

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Dingbatt

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#152739 30-Jul-2008 16:42

Unless something has changed in the latest SVNs for MediaPortal it doesn't support software encoding of an analogue signal which I think the HVR-4000 requires. So manually tuning the channels won't make much difference.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

mcraenz

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#152742 30-Jul-2008 16:49

Yeah MediaPortal TVServer really only supports analog cards with hardware MPEG2 encoders, but to be honest you don't really want to be doing encoding in software, pretty nasty IMHO, with cards like the MCE PVR-150 analog a/v goes in MPEG2 data comes out, nice and simple.

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tifoso

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#152744 30-Jul-2008 16:56

Seeing as all I want at the moment is to receive the analogue TV signals via my HTPC I'm thinking of putting my old TV tuner card back in. Its a Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP Expert card. I know that this card isn't supported by MediaPortal anymore (one of the reasons I got the Hauppauge card) so I'll use the latest Winfast PVR2 software to view and record TV.

davidcole

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#152749 30-Jul-2008 17:29

the author of gbpvr put in some limited support for the analogue side of the hvr products, so you could re-try that...

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1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#153047 31-Jul-2008 15:49

How long have you had the Hauppauge card? Maybe you could exchange it for one that is going to do what you require (ie. HVR-2200). If the company (unless you bought from an auction

) has any issues with this, I think the Consumers Guarantee Act may assist as you bought it to do a specific task & it has failed in this role (ie. no ability to view/record analogue TV stations). I would think any reputable company would be able to help you, especially if you wanted to change to another card from the same company. Hope you kept the box & manuals

kiwijunglist

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#154128 4-Aug-2008 21:33

I am using HVR2200 / Mediaportal RC2 / XP Pro SP2

When i scan for analog channel it scans in over 300 channels.
Does anyone know which one is Prime (I am in christchurch)
I tried channel 316 as listed above - that is analog c4
I also tried channel 63 that is also C4

I went to www.lincrad.co.nz and looked up the frequencies for sugarloaf (Christchurch)

Channel = Prime TV (UHF)
Polarisation = 63
Frequency = Horizontal
Band = 799.25 MHz

I tried to manually add channel in mediaportal, there is no entry for polarisation,
Can someone tell me which settings to use.
I tried setting channel to 63, but i got C4

EDIT: You have to reboot the computer for the changes to take effect, hence why everything was stuck on C4

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

amigo

161 posts

Master Geek

#154421 5-Aug-2008 18:49

kiwijunglist: I am using HVR2200 / Mediaportal RC2 / XP Pro SP2

Does anyone know which one is Prime (I am in christchurch)

You almost had it right, except it is on channel 62 instead of 63, and the Polarization = Frequency in MP.

There are some issues with this card with analogue Medial Portal though, see the FreeView forum, about "unable to Timeshift" or something like that.

Let us know if you get analogue to work properly on your setup!

kiwijunglist

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#154482 5-Aug-2008 22:01

I only have Prime enabled on analog
I can verify that the picture is good
I can timeshift
I can change from digital to prime and back again without problems
Havn't tried analog recording yet

Unfortunately I don't have a EPG for Prime, because metalinc's EPG doesn't include that channel.

I still have the problem that i get garbled picture in C4/TVNZ6/TVNZ7, but every other channel is perfect
I may just have to use C4 analog for the time being.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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