Already have a tuner working. Need to get MediaPortal to use it. (1 Viewer)

[lokistrategies]

Windows 7 64 bit

So I'm a newbie that just got done building a HTPC for the family. I currently have a Pinnacle PCTV 801e se tuner working with the PCTV software that came with it. I can see all the channels and its great. But I can't get the MediaPortal TV server version: 1.2.1.0 n to find the channels on its own. I tried downloading the Xmltv files into the folder under program data and turning on the plugin, restarting tvservice in cmd, and importing an XML file exported from Pinnacle's TVcenter that has all the channels, but it gave me a warning saying its detected channels and they could conflict with the current ones, then didn't import anything. It says it has ClearQAM/ATSC/NTSC.

I have the ATSC and Analog tuners showing up under the IP address of the computer in TVservers, and I grouped them into a hybrid card. I think my main problem is I'm totally lost when it comes to codecs because, because it says there none installed. Number 9 on the list is actually a Pinnacle Mpeg 2 encoder, and I've tried to install some other ones.

My end goal is to get the Server to recognize it so XBMC 10.1-PVR_v2 will recognize it and I can run everything through it.

tl:dr; have a tuner working great with its own software. Can't get Tv server to see it. I think its because I can't get Tvsever to recognize any codecs I installed. Want the end result to be XBMC Pvr version to work with it.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi and welcome lokistrategies

So are you primarily trying to use the analog or the ATSC/clear QAM tuner?
Probably the first thing I'd say is that you can't create channels in TV Server with an XMLTV file. You can create channels manually but most people use the tuners themselves to scan for channels.

The ATSC/QAM tuner should scan for channels without any trouble:
1. Open TV Server configuration.
2. Expand the "TV Servers" section.
3. Select and expand your TV Server on the left.
4. Select the 801e ATSC/QAM tuner.
5. Click "scan for channels" to search for ATSC channels.
6. Tick "tune QAM instead of ATSC" and then click "scan for channels" to search for digital cable channels (note: you may need to try different QAM standards to enable you to find all your channels).

If you don't find any channels using the above method then make sure the Pinnacle software is not running. Tuners can only be used in one application at a time. You'd need to restart the TV service (go to the manual control section of TV Server configuration, click "stop service"... then "start service) if the Pinnacle software has been running.

Analog tuners are a whole different kettle of fish if they don't have hardware encoders (the 801e does not). You're right to be looking at the software encoder tab in the general section of TV Server configuration. Are any of the encoders listed there detected as installed? If there is at least one audio and one video encoder installed and scanning still doesn't work then you may need to find another encoder. You could also post your TV Server logs so that I can check out what might be going wrong:

1. Open TV Server configuration.
2. Click "open log directory" in the top left hand corner.
3. Zip up all the files you find there.
4. Post the zip file here.

Hope that helps.

mm

 

[lokistrategies]

So I actually reinstalled 32 bit windows instead. I don't know if that helped. But I think the problem with the QAM channels was that the service for the PCTV was running on startup and hogging it, because I got them all with QAM standard .

The problem is with the Analogue channels. I know I have encoders installed because PCTV says MPEG-2, Dolby Digital, H.264, and Dvix are activated and I can see those channels fine on PCTV. But Tvsetup says a no beside all of them, both Video and Audio. TV server config even has Pinnacle MPEG 2 encoder on the list and say its not installed. Do you need logs for that?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi lokistrategies

Apologies for the delayed response - my computer has been out of action.
So from what you've said I think TV Server probably doesn't support the encoders that you have installed. They may actually work if you force TV Server to recognise them (which can be done by modifying the softwareencoder table in the TV Server database), however to be honest I have tried Pinnacle/PCTV encoders in the past (I have 2 Pinnacle 7010ix TV cards) but I found they either didn't work with TV Server or were unreliable. For that reason I would recommend trying to find alternatives. I'm a fan of the ATI encoders for their relative reliability, so you could try them (see the comment -->on this page<--). Alternatively PM the guy from this thread and see what he can offer you.

mm