I wish i was as up to speed as many of you people out there. I have been trying to run the Hauppauge HVR3000 on my vista home premium and while I have a picture and sound through the WINTV I get a stream failure message when trying to record. I have downloaded the updated driver from the Hauppauge site with no change. In addition i have been unable to get the MC to pick up my Sky decoder. I only use the Sky decoder for FTA due to bad reception for T in my area. The picture I get through WINTV is of only medium quality. I am planning to get a FTA-T decoder soon and hope that the MC can pick that up. Will the MC record FTA-T?
When you talk FTA-T are you referring to Freeview HD (DVB-T)? If so, unless things have changed with Microsoft recently, then Media Centre, Vista or otherwise, will not playback/record the H.264 AVC Freeview HD stream.
You will need a third party app like Mediaportal or DVBViewer for that. Hauppuage software is somewhat poor & always has been. I know, I went through the WinTV issues with my 150MCE card a while back. Don't waste your time; get one of the programmes I have stated.
If you go the PowerDVD way, just use the trial version as the codec will still work even after the trial period expires. But you do have to manually register the codec.
If you are talking about getting a FreeviewHD decoder in a set-top box such as a Zinwell and connecting it to your HVR-3000 in the same way as you have the satellite box (through composite or s-video cable) then it will be in STANDARD DEF. And the computer will then use software encoding to convert it to MPEG-2. I can just about guarantee you will be disappointed in the result. Although I use the HVR-3000 I have not bothered with the analogue side of it (either via aerial or composte/s-video) as it is not supported in MediaPortal. I did use WinTV for a start to get used to tuning parameters etc on the satellite side. I have a couple of suggestions: If you have got satellite for FTA because of poor terrestrial reception then your chances of getting digital terrestrial (FreeviewHD) to work are slim. Since you already have a dish why don't you use a splitter on the Sky cable and connect the satellite socket of your HVR-3000 up? It will be SD but clear and recordable. Ie satellite-dish-tuner-harddrive instead of satellite-skybox-s/video-tuner-softwareMPeg encoder-harddrive.
Areas of Geek interest: Home Theatre, HTPC, Android Tablets & Phones, iProducts.
Thanks to both 1gkar and Dingbatt. Dingbatt I was told that I would need a decoder box such as Sky or FTA DVB-S to get the hvr 3000 to work. What I am reading from you is that I can plug directly from the dish into the pc card bypassing my sky box. I have the cables in place to do this. Your confirmation of this a) will be greatly appreciated and b) shows how far I am behind in all this stuff. Thanks for your inteest. Cheers Jon
mej2002sep: Thanks to both 1gkar and Dingbatt. Dingbatt I was told that I would need a decoder box such as Sky or FTA DVB-S to get the hvr 3000 to work. What I am reading from you is that I can plug directly from the dish into the pc card bypassing my sky box. I have the cables in place to do this. Your confirmation of this a) will be greatly appreciated and b) shows how far I am behind in all this stuff. Thanks for your inteest. Cheers Jon
Just be aware that the LNB on the satellite dish has to be powered. At the moment that is being done by the Sky box. If you just connect the Tuner card then it will need to power the LNB. Because of the set up I have, I use a splitter and the sky box still powers the LNB via the power-pass leg of the splitter. If you intend to just use the tuner card then you may need to seek advice on this site about how to achieve that.
As for point b. Everybody has to start somewhere, and that is where this site is great. A lot can gleaned by trolling back through some older threads. This is particularly true for the satellite side of Freeview which has been around for more than a year. The satellite freeview is not as taxing on your system as terrestrial, and if you get it sorted in time you get the bonus of 24hr/day coverage of the Olympics on TVNZ Sport Extra.
Areas of Geek interest: Home Theatre, HTPC, Android Tablets & Phones, iProducts.
Dingbatt, thanks for our patience on this and your welcoming stance. Your advice has saved me from racing off and spending a lot of money as I was about to give up on the TV card and just go ahead and get a PVR/Decoder. All I need now is a couple of F plugs and a splitter and I should be able to finally start recording. Thanks again. Cheers Jon
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