Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (14 Viewers)

[David Abineri]

R300, I wonder if you can help with the SAF package. I have a Colossus and have the SAF packqge from Hoborg but I am not sure how to get this package installed properly. Any chance you could walk me through the steps so that the proper codec choices show on the TV server.

Thanks for any help youcan offer. Dave

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again luci5r

Actually you're very, very close to target!

Aw, shucks!

BTW - is there is a way for the xmltv plugin in TV-Server Configuration to read the tvguide.xml automatically at scheduled times once it's been created?

The plugin automatically detects when the file is updated and will import it. No settings required except "import new tvguide.xml".

mm

 

[elconejito]

I've got a strange EPG grabbing issue (or rather scheduling issue!) ... and I'm posting it in this thread cause some of us were discussing this a while back when I was setting everything up in this thread.

I use mc2xml for grabbing EPG data. I tried to schedule the mc2xml.exe program to run on a schedule using the Windows Task Scheduler which comes with Windows 7. The strange thing is - whenever the Task Scheduler launches the mc2xml.exe ... the exe asks for the parameters (like Postal Code, Zip Code, etc) to be entered!! However - If I simply click on & launch the mc2xml.exe ... it never asks me those parameters - it automatically takes the ones I specified the first time and runs the program, creating the correct xmltv.xml file. I have no clue why it is that when Task Scheduler launches the same mc2xml.exe, the exe asks for the parameters.

Because it asks for those parameters and human intervention is needed, the whole point of "automation" fails!!

Do you guys have another way of automating the creation of tvguide.xml using mc2xml which could potentially be set to run automatically at a pre-defined time WITHOUT human intervention??

Thanks!!

This is just a thought, but.... When you click on the .exe file, is it a shortcut or are you clicking directly on the .exe file? If it's a shortcut, maybe check the properties and see if in the target box there are some commands or parameters in there that need to be passed along when you use the Task Scheduler.

 

[deskwizard]

I've got a strange EPG grabbing issue (or rather scheduling issue!) ... and I'm posting it in this thread cause some of us were discussing this a while back when I was setting everything up in this thread.

I use mc2xml for grabbing EPG data. I tried to schedule the mc2xml.exe program to run on a schedule using the Windows Task Scheduler which comes with Windows 7. The strange thing is - whenever the Task Scheduler launches the mc2xml.exe ... the exe asks for the parameters (like Postal Code, Zip Code, etc) to be entered!! However - If I simply click on & launch the mc2xml.exe ... it never asks me those parameters - it automatically takes the ones I specified the first time and runs the program, creating the correct xmltv.xml file. I have no clue why it is that when Task Scheduler launches the same mc2xml.exe, the exe asks for the parameters.

Because it asks for those parameters and human intervention is needed, the whole point of "automation" fails!!

Do you guys have another way of automating the creation of tvguide.xml using mc2xml which could potentially be set to run automatically at a pre-defined time WITHOUT human intervention??

Thanks!!

Try using a little CMD script with mc2xml and your options and start this one with task scheduler with elevated privileged and windows 7 mode. Did the trick for me !

for example, my script simply is: mc2xml -o tvguide.xml

you will have to run it the first time for it to configure it with the GUI, then delete the xml file, add -f to the command line options in the script (used while testing to force the re download since it wont do it if you just run the thing, you can remove it afterwards) and run the task manually in task manager to see if its working.

You probably could make it work using the script content directly in Task scheduler but that's the way I did it .

Let me know if that helped!

 

[deskwizard]

Hi guys!

This time, its my turn to ask a question...

I'm about to pull the trigger on a colossus! and I was wondering if the htpc would be enough for it and the PVR150 at the same time...

Long story short, will the 4850e with 2gb of ram and a 5450 be enough, and should I pump the thing to 4gb?

I'll change the hd currently doing the time shift to something a little faster than currently, will be a 500gb caviar blue I have on hand.


Thoughts?


Thanks!

DW

 

[mm1352000]

Hi deskwizard

Yes, I think that should be okay. The Colossus and PVR-150 have hardware encoders, so you're okay on that front. According to -->this<-- article the HD5450 is capable of hardware accelerated 1080i playback with the best quality hardware deinterlacing (vector adaptive) as long as you're not using a 2560x1600 (30") computer monitor... so yeah, should work fine.

mm

 

[deskwizard]

Mm,

Thanks, I knew you'd get me on board!

DW

 

[elconejito]

+1 to what mm said. deskwizard, I think you should be fine. The only possible bottleneck might be your hard drive if you're recording and watching (timeshifting) off of the same drive.... but even then with only two tuners I don't think it should be an issue. Be sure and post how it goes.

 

[deskwizard]

+1 to what mm said. deskwizard, I think you should be fine. The only possible bottleneck might be your hard drive if you're recording and watching (timeshifting) off of the same drive.... but even then with only two tuners I don't think it should be an issue. Be sure and post how it goes.

This was in fact the area that I am the most scared of... I will try switching over the drive tonight to see how it goes, because of right now, I've got delay when "waking" up MP when recording, but the drive i'm using is ... how can I put it... archaic?

If I'm a little lucky, I'll get the card tonight or tomorrow, can't wait! Especially since pretty much everything else is ready to go (blasting, EPG, etc... ) ... I think with some little tweeks I'll have it working quickly!

DW

 

[elconejito]

To give you a **very broad oversimplified** rule of thumb I use...

The PVR150 is writing SD streams to the disk probably at a rate of around 10mb/s. The Colossus is writing HD streams to disk probably around 20mb/s. Both of those rates are complete estimates by me (don't recall where I got them from), and are dependent on the quality setting you choose. So if you are recording 2 streams at once, thats about 30mb/s being written to the disk. If you are also watching one of those streams, lets say HD stream, then you are also reading another 20mb/s off of the disk resulting in a total of about 50mb/s. If you are using only one drive, so this is also your windows install then you can add, at any particular moment, you A/V software decides to do a scan, windows decides it wants to update NOW, a random program checks for an update online, if you approach the 2GB ram limit (very possible if using vista or win7) then you can also add swap file usage there as well. (I'm not sure how timeshifting plays a part if your watching a show you are recording....).

Most recent (say last 5 years or so) hard drives have a max speed of approx 80mb/s. The newer Western Digital Caviar Blacks are over 100mb/s, the WD 1TB Black i use for my recordings has a max of just under 120mb/s if i recall correctly. Most recent drives keep most of that speed up until about 20-30% full where you start to see a slight performance dip. Then as you approach and pass 50% you see a BIG performance dip, sometimes dropping as much as half their speed or more as you approach being full. What also influences the speed is how fragmented your drive is, and how spread out across the drive your data is.

So I wrote all that so say.... If your drive is in decent shape (not too fragmented, and not a bunch of superflous garbage on it), and of a decent size/not too full, and reasonably "new-ish", you should be OK. You can control the fragmentation to a point, you can control the amount of data you keep on it to a point, and you can control to a point the bitrate of the recording streams.

If you have a really old drive, or its full (doesn't matter then if its new or not), then you *may* need a new drive. But definitely try it out first before you go adding drives you may or may not need. And if you do decide to upgrade your drives, I'd highly recommend multiple drives if you have the room in your case, rather than one big expensive drive that does everything. So that way you can keep your old "crappy" drive as OS/boot/programs/scratch/timeshift and the new drive for recordings.

HTH