Getting DIRECTV STB Working (2 Viewers)

[BTJustice]

I cannot seem to find a guide to help with this so I will ask here.

I have MediaPortal 1.1.2.0 installed. I have the XMLTV plug-in set up to grab the EPG for my DIRECTV STB. My TV card is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800.

My STB is connected to the TV card with an S-VIDEO cable and RCA audio cables.

When I go to the TV Guide in MediaPortal. I only see the analog channels which I added by clicking the button ADD S-VIDEO CHANNELS in the TV Server Config for my TV card.

How do I see the DIRECTV channels instead?

I wish MediaPortal listed all TV card inputs as sources instead of just Antenna and Cable.

Yeah that just doesn't make any sense to me to have the source as only Antenna and Cable. I would think there would be a lot of people out there using an STB and have it hooked up to their computer in a similar fashion as I do. It would be so easy to have S-Video and Composite as source inputs and MediaPortal would know to get the channels from a tvguide.xml source.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi there

When I go to the TV Guide in MediaPortal. I only see the analog channels which I added by clicking the button ADD S-VIDEO CHANNELS in the TV Server Config for my TV card.

How do I see the DIRECTV channels instead?

I think you have misunderstood what is possible with an s-video connection. An s-video connection to the DIRECTV STB isn't going to give you all the DIRECTV channels. It only gives you the one channel that is tuned on the STB.

I wish MediaPortal listed all TV card inputs as sources instead of just Antenna and Cable.

The meaning of "source" when you refer to antenna and cable is not the same as the meaning of "source" when you refer to s-video, composite, component and other inputs. Cable and antenna both use the HVR1800's analog tuner as a source. They are actually tuning modes - the difference is that cable mode has more channels (wider frequency band, narrower channels) than antenna mode. A true list of sources would be:
- tuner
- s-video
- composite
- component

S-video, composite and component sources don't allow you to "tune" more than one channel so there is no sense in adding them to the list of modes ("sources") which are used for scanning:

Multi channel per input sources: tuner
Single channel per input sources: s-video, composite, component, HDMI etc.

Yeah that just doesn't make any sense to me to have the source as only Antenna and Cable. I would think there would be a lot of people out there using an STB and have it hooked up to their computer in a similar fashion as I do. It would be so easy to have S-Video and Composite as source inputs and MediaPortal would know to get the channels from a tvguide.xml source.

Like I've tried to explain above, I think you have misunderstood what is possible with s-video and composite sources. Yes they are additional inputs, but they only allow you to view one channel per input. Using the tuner source is they only way you could possibly get all the DIRECTV channels into MediaPortal. The problem with that is that the HVR 1800 is an ATSC tuner, meaning it can't receive the DIRECTV satellite signals...

The only thing you can do with your current setup is to watch the channel that is tuned on the STB by watching the s-video input channel in MediaPortal. You would have to change channel on the STB to see a different DIRECTV channel in MediaPortal.

 

[BTJustice]

My understanding of a source was the connection to the TV card. So I can only add one channel in order to use S-Video? How do I go about adding the 1000+ Directv channels?

 

[mm1352000]

My understanding of a source was the connection to the TV card. So I can only add one channel in order to use S-Video?

It might help you to think of s-video as one channel. The same goes for composite, component, HDMI etc.

How do I go about adding the 1000+ Directv channels?

Like I said above, you can't do it with your current HVR1800 tuner. You need a DVB-S2 capable tuner that can handle DIRECTV's conditional access system (the access cards). I can't advise you on that since I have no experience whatsoever with DIRECTV or conditional access stuff. Hopefully another user from the USA can help you out with that...

[Edit:
Just to be clear, you can view all DIRECTV channels via the s-video input. The limitations are that you can only view/record one channel at a time (the channel that the STB is tuned to) and that you have to change channel on the STB. Some people do this, but it sounds like that is not what you wanted or expected...]

 

[BTJustice]

I use to use GBPVR. I had my Directv STB added on S-Video using an external tuner. The external tuner would be a .exe Channel Changer (I used IRSS for this). The EPG wold grab the correct channels for Directv. I never saw only one channel called S-Video. I only saw the actual Directv channels. When I wanted to change channels, I would type the channel number on my keyboard (after IRSS learned the STB IR codes) and it would change the channel on the STB.

I was hoping MediaPortal worked the same way.

 

[mm1352000]

It may be possible with plugins, but again it is out of my area of experience. MediaPortal has an IRSS plugin, but that is about all that I can add...

[Edit: I think this is similar to what you want. Setup could be tricky. You may have to add all the channels manually, set the tuning detail to the s-video input, and then set up IRSS to tune MediaPortal and your STB.]

 

[vogelap]

Hi there. I've been struggling with getting my DirecTV STB working with MediaPortal via my Hauppauge HVR-1850. I was happy to see this thread!

Were you ever able to get it working? If so, can you direct me to walkthroughs or other resources that were helpful? My eventual goal is to configure MediaPortal's TV-Server with Argus-TV and XBMC, to replace BeyondTV.

Some more technical info, that might be helpful:
* Running BeyondTV just fine right now
* Windows 7 64-bit
* Satellite comes in on channel 3, low-speed serial connector from PC to STB for changing channels
* Hauppauge HVR-1850
* USA, DirecTV

 

[BTJustice]

Nope I never did so I have been using NPVR instead...

http://www.nextpvr.com/