DTT Tests active on Waiatarua Auckland

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#106758 25-Jan-2008 17:29

TheBartender: Patience will prevail, these boys know what they are talking about.

What I don't understand though, is your need/desire to have both Freeview and Sky....its just duplictaing many channels....

I want Sky Sports. The missus wants E!, Living Channel etc.
I want a second source for the network channels for watching one and recording sky at the same time.
And I want HD when it goes live.

If you like sky (which selection is far greater) and plan to keep it, just provide a tuner for that and forget Freeview...

Then I lose the ability for a second feed of the network channels to do what I described above.

It's simple really, I want it all! :)

But my point being, no rush, building a perfect HTPC takes time and research to do it properly, and these are the right guys to ask your questions.

Yes I'm slowly learning this. I've pretty much got all the base components sorted, so I might start to acquire those soon. Then when it comes to the tuner cards, I might just get a dual analogue to start so I can use Sky and free to air. Then I'll worry about Freeview HD when it is released.

I'm also very interested in RustyGonad's claim that the MCE 2005 hacks will also work with Vista...

munchkin

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#106760 25-Jan-2008 17:45

It's a pity that you don't have Cable (are you in an area that can get TCL service?), what I have done is have the STB terminating at the PVR and then a second feed from a splitter installed before the STB that goes straight to the TV, allowing you to have One/2/3/c4/Prime/Weather/Guide info tuned in to the TV as well as having every other channel available through the PVR.

As TheBartender mentioned, building the perfect HTPC takes time and research. There is so much that can go wrong - simply installing the wrong codec can render the machine useless and in need of a complete reinstall. It happens to be a very frustrating yet rewarding path.

Have you looked at having multiple Media Center machines and then having the files shared across a home network? This is what I have set up and it allows us to have recorded programmes from two analogue tuners, a digital tuner and Freeview all viewable on the same TV. However, as I said above, I have tuned the TVs in to the FTA signals available on the cable, accomplishing what you want.

Have you looked at having a freeview STB hooked up to your TV while having Sky connected to a PVR? while it would mean fiddling with more remotes unless you bought a decent universal one, it also accomplishes what you want.

Satch

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#106825 25-Jan-2008 22:58

munchkin: It's a pity that you don't have Cable (are you in an area that can get TCL service?), what I have done is have the STB terminating at the PVR and then a second feed from a splitter installed before the STB that goes straight to the TV, allowing you to have One/2/3/c4/Prime/Weather/Guide info tuned in to the TV as well as having every other channel available through the PVR.

As TheBartender mentioned, building the perfect HTPC takes time and research. There is so much that can go wrong - simply installing the wrong codec can render the machine useless and in need of a complete reinstall. It happens to be a very frustrating yet rewarding path.

Have you looked at having multiple Media Center machines and then having the files shared across a home network? This is what I have set up and it allows us to have recorded programmes from two analogue tuners, a digital tuner and Freeview all viewable on the same TV. However, as I said above, I have tuned the TVs in to the FTA signals available on the cable, accomplishing what you want.

Have you looked at having a freeview STB hooked up to your TV while having Sky connected to a PVR? while it would mean fiddling with more remotes unless you bought a decent universal one, it also accomplishes what you want.

WAF=0 :)

munchkin

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#106826 25-Jan-2008 23:07

Trust me on this, having to fiddle with MCE to make it work 'correctly' (and not by your standards, someone else's) is a hard and horrible task. Usually the simplest option is the one that works out the best when dealing with a HTPC.

I can appreciate that having more than one remote isn't ideal too, but I make the flatmates deal with it.

openmedia

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#106829 25-Jan-2008 23:33

munchkin: Trust me on this, having to fiddle with MCE to make it work 'correctly' (and not by your standards, someone else's) is a hard and horrible task. Usually the simplest option is the one that works out the best when dealing with a HTPC.

I can appreciate that having more than one remote isn't ideal too, but I make the flatmates deal with it.

One reason I developed myPVR was these issues with other solutions.

Most of my customers have freeview DTH, Sky and analogue VHF/UHF. MythTV Doesn't care, it records from the best available source. You program by program not tuner etc.

Steve

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

mcraenz

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#107152 28-Jan-2008 11:28

I can't scan in any DVB-T channels in mediaportal anymore. Are the signals still up in Auckland?

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Fossie

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#107173 28-Jan-2008 13:41

I haven't been able to get MP to work either.

cranz

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#107227 28-Jan-2008 18:43

Neither have I, have had a play with the MediaPortal tuning parameters file dvbt.xml for auto-scan and have also tried to manually configure channels both with no success.

Can view ok in DVBViewer however

lchiu7

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#107237 28-Jan-2008 19:30

munchkin: It's a pity that you don't have Cable (are you in an area that can get TCL service?), what I have done is have the STB terminating at the PVR and then a second feed from a splitter installed before the STB that goes straight to the TV, allowing you to have One/2/3/c4/Prime/Weather/Guide info tuned in to the TV as well as having every other channel available through the PVR...

Note with the digital STB from TCL there is no need to split the signal before hitting the STB. You can split it after the STB (and avoid injecting spurious RF back into the cable system) since the new digital STB passes through the entire cable signal as well as the unscrambled one processed by the box.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

munchkin

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#107239 28-Jan-2008 19:38

Oh, I know that :-) I was generalising though as you can't do the same with the analogue STB's. One should learn to be more specific...

RustyGonad

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#107353 29-Jan-2008 10:15

I'm also very interested in RustyGonad's claim that the MCE 2005 hacks will also work with Vista...

It works - I'll start another thread bit later with the HOW TO, but I can confirm I have the following going under Vista MCE:

On a single Hauppauge HVR3000 - at the same time (someone on here said this won't work!):

Analog FTA TV    via the Analog Tuner
DVB-S Freeview   via the DVBS to DVBT using the digital tuner
FM Radio            via the Analog Tuner
S-Video input      via the Analog Tuner

You can record Analog while watching Digital, and vice versa, which confirms that the HVR-3000 Analog and Digital tuners are separate. This is all running off a single common Program Guide (complete including Prime, Juice, Cue etc)

Despite my earlier comment this is actually very easy to setup - once I got my head around the process and the very poor documentation/info - thats the hard bit. From scratch I could set this up in around 30 minutes including the guide, alot of which is tuner search time.

I've set it up so that Prime and Juice come from the Analog side, along with the rest of the Freeview Digitial stuff - seems to be working well so far.

I'll test it with Dual Cards sometime later in the week ie 2 x HVR3000's, just need to move some stuff around to free up a slot in my production machine. Will also test out the same combo with my old PVR150, however I know there won't be too many issues with that.

Analog tuner quality in the HVR3000 is average - the PVR150 definitely puts out a better tweaked picture - haven't played with the HVR much yet to see if it can be improved, however it looks like its a signal quality thing rather than motion comp or anything like that. My guess is the HVR introduces RF interference into the Analog tuner, using the same aerial on the PVR150 produces a much better result.

So that leaves h.264 DVB-T as the only real thing Vista MCE won't do... Fiji update anyone???

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sbiddle

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#107356 29-Jan-2008 10:33

RustyGonad:
Analog tuner quality in the HVR3000 is average - the PVR150 definitely puts out a better tweaked picture - haven't played with the HVR much yet to see if it can be improved, however it looks like its a signal quality thing rather than motion comp or anything like that. My guess is the HVR introduces RF interference into the Analog tuner, using the same aerial on the PVR150 produces a much better result.

I think the quality is just because the MCE150 has onboard MPEG encoding rather than the 3000 that doesn't.

Satch

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#107358 29-Jan-2008 10:52

Guys,

For those interested, I have (finally) started that new thread.

It is here: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=34&TopicId=18907

Satch.

Fossie

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#107774 31-Jan-2008 13:57

Well, i'm back. So here's an update of what I can pick up.

530000:
TV ONE
TV 2 (720p loop)
TVNZ6 (live)
TVNZ7 (live tv2)
Sports extra

538000:
TV ONE
TV 2 (720p loop)
TVNZ6 (live)
TVNZ7 (tv2)
Sports extra

562000:
TV3
C4 (live c4)

570000:
TV3
C4 (live c4)

666000:
Maori TV
Parliament
3KSD
4KSD
5KSD
6KSD
1KHD

itey

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#109159 7-Feb-2008 20:05

got my TV card today.

The bundled software from digitalnow.com.au was really good for finding the channels...

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