Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (10 Viewers)

[mdsflyer]

fyx if your dish is a standard sky (65cm) dish and is pointing at anything other than optus d1 i would wonder if the signal strength would be strong enough. Generally i've seen quoted that larger dishes are needed for the other satellites, i'd suggest realigning it to optus d1 (which has the most popular channels anyways).
I totally agree with mcraenz in the above post, get it working with setup4pc before moving onto other software as this makes it easier to discern what is causing the difficulties.
Your LNB value is most likely 11300 or 10750 but there other types available, was it originally a sky dish or from an independent supplier?
dan_nz mcraenz suggestion re pci slots worked for me with my sound card, so why not a dvb-s card, cant hurt to try
Cheers m

 

[dan_nz]

Hey mcraenz, yeah I've been following your guide. It has been a great help

The stuttering problem affected recordings, and that was a codec problem. I reinstalled the codec pack with the Gabest one for MPEG2 (I think it's the same that came with MediaPortal, oh well) and it works fine now.

The reason why I say it is a signal problem is that the glitches also appear on my computer when I play back the files in the exact same places. I have a similar setup. Although, interestingly enough, they are worse at the beginning of a recording more than during it, so maybe it's the way the file is being saved (??).

Yeah, I'll stick to the TV server as I haven't gone anywhere near as far in mytv as I had with server. I've now got the serial remote working, thanks to some of the previous posts here (using IRex with WinLIRC) but it's very hit and miss for me, sometimes it feels too sensitive, but at the same time, not very sensitive at all. Any other suggestions for the serial remote that came with a Skystar 2? I'm quite considering getting an MCE remote tbh but just don't have the money for such a thing just yet.

Oh, one last thing, I heard that TV server can do multiplex recording. Is that true and how to enable it? (Despite me mainly watching tv one and my flatmate mainly watching tv 3, but it'd still be nice to have from time to time )

 

[mcraenz]

yep sure can do multiplexing, no need to enable it, it just works, just start a recording on both channels and it will just work Yeah when you've got some cash pick up an MCE remote they're really good and nice to use, only complaint I have is that after about 1.5 years of solid use they start to look very tatty (compared to my other remotes 3 times the age) and the silver coating is rubbing off! And when you've got even more spare cash grab another ss2 for recording of all freeview channels at once!

 

[fyx]

Cheers dude, Im pretty sure that the dish was an old sky one but i cant be certain (as im not there), Ill remove all the software and drivers and download the newest ones i can find and see if that helps at all. Any idea though if the cable could be grounded on the case? For the case i used for their htpc i choose the sliverstone 11 (i think, been a while, anyhow it uses a daughter pci card to turn the pci cards horizontally as the case is slim line), problem being the case came with the AGP daughter card, and the mobo is pci-e so the daughter card doesnt align correctly and i had to remove the steel mounting bracket on the (firstly) anology 150MCE tvcard and then (my old man) the skystar2. Thus the card is held in place rather lightly, there is a bit of polystyrene wedged in to fix it a little more.

 

[captcol]

Unfortunately for tv1 and tv3 to be watched or recorded concurrently you will need 2 2 cards as they are on different transponders, from my experience anyways.

A question anyone using reven's xmltvnz with media portal for analogue signals, i have the grabber working but not sure how to get things to talk to each other in the server and the wiki didn't really help.

 

[dan_nz]

OK guys, I'm trying my hardest to try and get MediaPortal to work as I expect it to, but never have I had to jump through so many [flaming] hoops just to get a picture on the screen. As my friend said last night, it's a sad day when it's easier to configure something on Linux than on Windows.

I tried mcraenz's idea of switching PCI slots, but now I'm in a much worse position than I was last night. Now I can receive the channel lists but whenever I try to preview the channels I just get a NoVideoAudioDetected error message, even when using MediaPortal itself. I restart the computer, and then for some unknown reason the system (yes all task manager says is "system") uses 50% CPU... until I load the TV Server config. Then if I try and preview (and get the error message), it's now going at 50% again, until I switch a tab and it's alright, unless I get to the Manual control tab and it isn't grabbing any EPG.

 

[zxcvbnm2]

I used to have a Gigabit board and my Skystar2 would only work in the bottom PCI slot. I think it has to do with how much power it draws.

I got got stutters when I replaced my LNB to try TV server out. I finally found the dish was about 3 degrees to low.

Dish angle calculator http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/dish-angle-calculator-i-16.html

 

[mruane]

Well I finally got a Nova S Plus installed into my MP plus TV Server setup and everything is finally working a treat. Inspired by TranceManNZ who seems to be having exactly the same problem that I experienced whilst setting this up - I though I would share a really silly error I made in connecting the Dish to the Nova S Plus card that caused blank screens lack of program data from the sat.

It took me about two hours to realise that the co-ax cable that fed the PVR500 card I previously used, was first connected to a standard VCR machine and the output of that fed into the PCI card. After connecting that co-ax to the dish, I failed to remove the VCR from the path. Of course, that isn't going to work. As soon as I plugged the co-ax directly into the PCI card rather than via the VCR the TV Engine could search D1 and obtain all of the program data it needed including the EPG data.

Many thanks to all posters in this thread for providing all the info I needed. Really appreciate that.

Cheers Mike

 

[dan_nz]

I think people got confused when I said I had stutter. This was from a recording, and it happened when skipping forward/backward. I changed the output codec and all is fine now

I think that in the past when I had issues with no video output, I wiped TV Server clean off the computer and started again. This isn't very convenient, especially if I have to do it every time I change the PCI slot! But Windows XP has been giving me blue screen errors, so I think I'll get over the graphical glitches!

Well, I'm sorry guys. I'm installing MythTV. Windows just became incredibly unstable, blue screened on me, the lot. Couldn't get it to pick up the channels again. Too much effort for so little gain. Thanks for the help though, and I may look at it again, one day.

 

[mdsflyer]

fyx your harware setup is not inspiring confidence, i would guess there are probably so many variables its hard to work out which is causing the problem. I cant see how the cable inner would ground on the case as if connected properly that just shouldn't be possible, on my sat cable the inner protrudes no more than 1cm and this seems to do the job. I'd still think the most likely problem is a too small a dish for the signal you are receiving. Realign it to Optus D1 and i would suspect that you'll be fine, impossible to do from 600 miles but you could always grab-a-seat !

dan_nz Each to their own, MP works great for me and linux looks a tad complex but i know there are those who swear by Myth TV.