Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!)

[mcraenz]

I always thought that the native MPEG2 encoder on the PVR150 pretty much demanded that we use

I've always used .ts but now that you mention it, mpeg would makes sense, I mean It's not like a DVB broadcast that's nativity TS.

[Bleazle]

Prime recording problem is sorted!

I did another uninstall/re-install (but removed the TVDatabase properly this time - it does get left behind by the uninstall, I don't know how I missed it the 1st time..), set everything up and tried to record Prime again - No luck!! so I decided to read through the log files (which is kind of like deciding to read some Egyptian Hyrogliphics - not much point if you don't know what you're looking at ).

Again this line line stood out "Controller: channel #2 tv : Prime Freq:0 Channel:4 Country:The Netherlands Tuner:Cable Video: SvhsInput1 " I couldn't work out where it was getting "The Netherlands" from since I had set NZ/Cable in the card tuning tab.

So here's what I did: Under TV Channels, right clicked on Prime ->Edit this Channel -> Analogue (Analog) Tab, and there I saw "The Netherlands" set as the country changed that to NZ and the input to Antenna (don't think that maks any difference though) and it was sorted, Prime records! - took less than 5 seconds- DAMN!!

Good to have it sorted though- thanks for your input on this on mcraenz.

Of course nothing is ever as easy as it should be though.... now I can't disable the Radio plugin for some reason Actually I can but when I go into MP it's still there and when I go back to config its enabled again Not going to get too stressed abou it - just "hid it" in the Plugins section...

Next question - are any of you guys using ForTheRecord with a DVB-S EPG? Looks like a great plugin specially since MP won't show a series as being set to record if the time isn't exactly as per when "record every week at this time" was selected - then I have to heck that it's going to record to keep the wife happy....

[Neville]

Hi

So here's what I did: Under TV Channels, right clicked on Prime ->Edit this Channel -> Analogue (Analog) Tab, and there I saw "The Netherlands" set as the country changed that to NZ and the input to Antenna (don't think that maks any difference though) and it was sorted, Prime records! - took less than 5 seconds- DAMN!!

I had a simlar problem with Prime - I had it set to New Zealand however - and it would not find Prime
Changed it to Saouth Africa and presto there was Prime. I have no idea how all this workd but is the country info re NZ channel frequencies slightly wrong?

REgards

Neeville

[gperkinson]

Hello All Fellow Kiwis!!!

So how many of you are there now?? Well, you can add one more!!

Wow, 189 pages of posts!! That's impressive.

Like many of you, I'm sure you started off looking at Windows Media Centre and then discovered that you cannot watch and record in HD for some time yet and somehow ended up looking at Media Portal. It's certainly perfect for NZ now that Freeview has come out!!

One question I have in relation to NZ is around the best EPG. I'm currently using xmlTVNZ and it's working fine, but I have not worked out how to pickup Prime in the guide. Does anybody know how to do this through xmlTVNZ??

Regards

Graham

[Neville]

Hi Graham
I like you got to mediaportal. I use xmlTVNZ and followed theeeeee instructions on Reven's wed site (reven interactive) In the command builder "prime" is listed. I think I had to "map" it in the MP Server xmlTV plugin (ie "mapping tab") on the MPserver config as was not found correctly mapped but have had no problems after that.
Hope that helps a little - let me knwo if you have further questions

Neville

PS I have also found the NZ TV reliably has 4 minutes of ads - I have changed the skip steps to 240sec....

[gperkinson]

Hi Neville,

Thanks and that took all of 1 minute to setup and worked staright away - awesome. As you say, once xmlTVNZ setup, it has worked flawlessly for me as well.

Can I ask how you set it up to grab the EPG automatically each day - keen to use Powerscheduler to do this as it allows you to setup days to do this and all my "power / standby" tasks are nicely centralised.

Any help here appreciated.

Graham

[Bleazle]

Originally Posted by Neville

... I have also found the NZ TV reliably has 4 minutes of ads - I have changed the skip steps to 240sec....

Mate, install Comskip and you'll (almost) never see another ad while watching TV, it's great!

[thekiwi]

Originally Posted by Bleazle

Mate, install Comskip and you'll (almost) never see another ad while watching TV, it's great!

Ive tried a couple of times to get Comskip working and never been successful. The files are all created in the folder with the TS file and everything looks OK ... but pressing the "skip" on the remote doesn't do anything.

Did you have to do anything special config wise?

PS. Just wondered, are you watching recorded TV through MyVideos or MtTV? I go through MyTV (eg Recorded TV on the MS remote), but seem to recall somehting about it maybe only working through MyVideos?

[Neville]

Mate, install Comskip and you'll (almost) never see another ad while watching TV, it's great!

I did not think it work in NZ - anytrick to setting up?
Thanks in advance
Neville

Can I ask how you set it up to grab the EPG automatically each day - keen to use Powerscheduler to do this as it allows you to setup days to do this and all my "power / standby" tasks are nicely centralised.

I set up the folder in a place that I can write to (ie Public folder in vista) and created the "guide.cmd" as suggested by xmlTVNZ then simply use the windows scheduler to do a fetch every morning before I get out of bed! I have to admit that I keep my copmuter running as had some issues with standby so the scheduler is not an issue. xmlTV pluggin finds the new TVguide.xml file in the same folder automatically after being pointed there in the setup configurator.

Works well and well worth the trouble to set up!

Neville

[Bleazle]

@ thekiwi & Neville: Sorry for the slow reply, I've been out of town.

The setting I use for Comskip (set in TV Server config)is:

--playnice "{0}"

I haven't done any other tweaks and it works accurately over 90% of the time. The channels I record are TV1,2,3, C4, Maori (sport!), TVNZ 6 & 7 via DVB-S and Prime via Sky STB/PVR 150. Every now and then Comskip doesn't get it quite right and I have to skip ads manually but it's pretty rare.

I have it set to run after the show has finished recording. If you're using MP RC3 & TVServer disable Comskip in MP Config - it should only be enabled in the TVServer config. Make sure you've got the latest version of Comskip too - when I first upgraded to RC3 I couldn't figure out why Comskip wasn't working but it was just because my version of Comskip was old

It doesn't make any difference if I watch recorded TV via "Recorded TV" or "My Videos", skipping the ads with the <Skip> button still works.

With regard to the <Skip> button not working I've got no idea - I guess it depends on what remote you're using. I'm using MCE keyboard & remote & the skip button works on both. If you play a DVD does the <Skip> button skip chapters? If it does I would've thought it would work for Comskip too... Have you had a look under the Comskip thread? It's ages since I set it up initially but I know I didn't have to do any key mapping...

Hope that helps you get Comskip up and running..

Dave