Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (2 Viewers)

[andrewNZ]

Thanks Guys, this works like a charm.
I am using for the record and need separate files for tv and radio. The solution is an easy one now that i can specify the full path.
I create one scheduled task in Win7 give it two actions to run the grabber with different ini files and we're away laughing. Windows even runs them one after another (not side by side) from the same scheduled task.

 

[rocklander]

gidday all.. another new to mediaportal kiwi here (late to the party it seems!).
I've got a 1Gb pent 2.4 with a USB 1Tb disk for recording (and 3 pata disks of various sizes internally).

I got this all cracking initially very happily, but the issue of TVNZ VS CANWEST (can record one lnb, and not watch the other) occurred so I bought a second card.
I have overcome the different LNB issues there, but all of a sudden my remote does not work

I have 2X WinTV-NOVA-S-Plus DBV-S cards (satellite only in rotovegas) and they both have an internal IR port and remote.
any clues as to why the remote would suddenly fail?
I've been over device manager to see if I can disable the IR on one of the cards, but unfortunately it seems to be tied into the DVB-S part of the card (disable one, both are disabled).

I've a USB remote coming soon and hope that will fix the issue, but am not sure. anyone out there got this kind of setup (2X nova cards working happily in the same box)?

I'm also getting anomalous black screens if they're both enabled in the tv server config.. disable one, and it's fine again...

I contacted the hauppage support and they (typically) said it'll be a mediaportal issue, despite the fact that it doesn't work on their native WinTv app either

any suggestions as to where I can start to sort my remote control woes?

 

[mcraenz]

Personally I'd not bother with TVCard connected remotes. If you get something like a Microsoft MCE UBS remote, the setup goes something like this: Plug in. Tick the box in MediaPortal.Done

 

[rocklander]

thanks muchly.. this encourages me no end cos I have a (cheap - ex china - dealextreme is just crazy for prices) usb remote winging its way to me.
so can I take it then from your experience I should be sweet if I ignore the integrated remotes and have the 2 nova s cards (identical) working happily?

 

[mcraenz]

Ah yes dealextreme, love that site. got a link for the one you ordered?

 

[rocklander]

DealExtreme: $10.10 Wireless Multimedia Infrared IR Remote Controller with USB Receiver for PC (2*AAA)


at that price I had to give it a go .. heh.

 

[timbotim]

OK, so this is my first post. Only recently installed MP and got it going pretty well (thanks heaps to the guys behind the MHEG5 EPG Data grabber).

I've been playing around with the weather feature and was looking around for some decent self-updating weather pics for NZ with a static URL. After not being able to find any, I've written a little thing to grab the latest from the metservice website and metvuw.com and upload them to a static URL (because I can't figure out how to make MP open a local image).

In the interests of sharing, you can use my URLs now for NZ weather data in the weather settings of MP configuration:

Satellite: http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite.jpg
Temperature: http://weather.secure.org.nz/temp.gif
UV Index: http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-and-ozone/curr_uvi_l.gif [not hosted by me, but updated regularly]
Winds: http://weather.secure.org.nz/wind.gif
Humidity: http://weather.secure.org.nz/temp.gif [same as temperature]
Precipitaion: http://weather.secure.org.nz/rain.gif [animated gif made from metservice stills]
or http://weather.secure.org.nz/rain.jpg [latest still image]

Every one of these, except the UV Index and the Precipitation are (usually) updated every 3 hours, 1 hour after the data is taken (because it takes a while for them to update the site). The Precipitation images are updated every hour, about 10 minutes after the latest image is taken.

It makes animated gifs for the satellite image as well but for some reason when I enter the url (http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite24hr.gif) into MP, I get the error:

No usable image detected. The Parameter is not valid.

It works fine with other programs that can view animated gifs. Anyone with any ideas on why this might be happening? I don't know whether MP has a maximum file size for weather images so it might be because the file is quite big (~3.8 MB). I'm using a command line gif animator to make the gif (ImageMagick) that I know very little about, so I'm not sure how to bring the file size down. I've tried spanning less time with the animations (as in last 12 hours or 6 hours - you can see them all at weather.secure.org.nz, they're all being updated at the moment, just MP won't open them). MP seems to do fine opening the other animated gif ImageMagick creates, rain.gif, so it seems it's unlikely to be a problem with ImageMagick's gifs. Any ideas?

 

[timbotim]

Oh, and by the way, it's running on a USB DVB-T Tuner + Remote I bought from ebay for NZ$12.80 including shipping. The little aerial they supply with it doesn't receive enough signal to work even though I'm close to one of the transmitters. But with it plugged in to my roof aerial plug (with an adapter, again from ebay for NZ$2.77 inc. shipping), it works fine. And MP just runs fine in the background of my home computer.

So total cost of setting it up for me was only NZ$15.57

 

[Neville]

OK, so this is my first post. Only recently installed MP and got it going pretty well (thanks heaps to the guys behind the MHEG5 EPG Data grabber).

I've been playing around with the weather feature and was looking around for some decent self-updating weather pics for NZ with a static URL. After not being able to find any, I've written a little thing to grab the latest from the metservice website and metvuw.com and upload them to a static URL (because I can't figure out how to make MP open a local image).

In the interests of sharing, you can use my URLs now for NZ weather data in the weather settings of MP configuration:

Satellite: http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite.jpg
Temperature: http://weather.secure.org.nz/temp.gif
UV Index: http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-and-ozone/curr_uvi_l.gif [not hosted by me, but updated regularly]
Winds: http://weather.secure.org.nz/wind.gif
Humidity: http://weather.secure.org.nz/temp.gif [same as temperature]
Precipitaion: http://weather.secure.org.nz/rain.gif [animated gif made from metservice stills]
or http://weather.secure.org.nz/rain.jpg [latest still image]

Every one of these, except the UV Index and the Precipitation are (usually) updated every 3 hours, 1 hour after the data is taken (because it takes a while for them to update the site). The Precipitation images are updated every hour, about 10 minutes after the latest image is taken.

It makes animated gifs for the satellite image as well but for some reason when I enter the url (http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite24hr.gif) into MP, I get the error:

No usable image detected. The Parameter is not valid.

It works fine with other programs that can view animated gifs. Anyone with any ideas on why this might be happening? I don't know whether MP has a maximum file size for weather images so it might be because the file is quite big (~3.8 MB). I'm using a command line gif animator to make the gif (ImageMagick) that I know very little about, so I'm not sure how to bring the file size down. I've tried spanning less time with the animations (as in last 12 hours or 6 hours - you can see them all at weather.secure.org.nz, they're all being updated at the moment, just MP won't open them). MP seems to do fine opening the other animated gif ImageMagick creates, rain.gif, so it seems it's unlikely to be a problem with ImageMagick's gifs. Any ideas?

Hey thanks for this works a treat! I tried images ages ago and like you said gave up. Thanks for the work and hosting!!

Although is it possible to make the image bigger or maybe Bleazle knows how to stretch so looks bigger on my hi def monitor (Yes of course still using Bleazlewide!)

 

[timbotim]

Hey thanks for this works a treat! I tried images ages ago and like you said gave up. Thanks for the work and hosting!!

Although is it possible to make the image bigger or maybe Bleazle knows how to stretch so looks bigger on my hi def monitor (Yes of course still using Bleazlewide!)

I can't change the sizes of the images unfortunately. The images are just grabbed from the web, renamed and uploaded again. That's as big as they come. I'm using RC2 and the images automatically stretch to the size of the image display area. The UV index one is really small so it looks quite pixelated though.

If you, or anyone else, has a source for higher resolution pictures, I could change the script to grab those instead. Those were just the best ones I found in my short look. Also pics that were already animated would make things a bit easier at my end because I keep having problems with automating the command line gif animator (which may mean it takes a while to update the images sometimes).

It makes animated gifs for the satellite image as well but for some reason when I enter the url (http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite24hr.gif) into MP, I get the error:

No usable image detected. The Parameter is not valid.

It works fine with other programs that can view animated gifs. Anyone with any ideas on why this might be happening? I don't know whether MP has a maximum file size for weather images so it might be because the file is quite big (~3.8 MB). I'm using a command line gif animator to make the gif (ImageMagick) that I know very little about, so I'm not sure how to bring the file size down. I've tried spanning less time with the animations (as in last 12 hours or 6 hours - you can see them all at weather.secure.org.nz, they're all being updated at the moment, just MP won't open them). MP seems to do fine opening the other animated gif ImageMagick creates, rain.gif, so it seems it's unlikely to be a problem with ImageMagick's gifs. Any ideas?

To answer my own question, I've been playing around with the graphics converter and reduced file sizes quite significantly. MP still produces the error when putting the url for animated gifs into MP's weather configuration and pressing preview, but the animated gifs work in MP itself (which is the important part).

So if you want animated satellite images, use one of these links:

http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite6hr.gif ~ 450KB, last 6 hrs
http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite12hr.gif ~ 740KB, last 12 hrs
http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite18hr.gif ~ 1 MB, last 18 hrs
http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite24hr.gif ~ 1.3MB last 24 hrs

The bigger files will give you a longer view into the weather, but take up more of your bandwidth, more of my bandwidth, and will take longer to load. You can still always just use the latest still satellite image here:

http://weather.secure.org.nz/satellite.jpg ~ 380KB

The still satellite image is higher quality than the animated pics.