- Thread starter
- #931
The latest SVN + patch + commented out PMT wait is working for me right now. I'm running a several hour recording test since recent builds seemed to make the HD-PVR unstable.
initial support for Hauppuage HD-PVR (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter garry
- Start date
The latest SVN + patch + commented out PMT wait is working for me right now. I'm running a several hour recording test since recent builds seemed to make the HD-PVR unstable.
- Moderator
- #932
Hmmm, okay I will try that again tonight. Did you use MisterD's first or second patch?
Thanks Garry!
- Thread starter
- #933
First patch, I hadn't seen the second.
Recording worked for over 2 hours without failing.
- Moderator
- #934
Cool!
That was what I tried a few days ago but it didnt work. I used MisterD's first patch and commented out the PMT timer... Could I ask you to post your change (or maybe a patch) so I can see what changes you made?
Thanks!
- December 15, 2010
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I appreciate that you would give a straight opinion, SJeffrey. I guess I will look at using MythTV as a backend in a separate machine and something else as a Windows frontend drawing from it. I was hoping to avoid that but it looks like the technology isn't quite there yet on the Windows side. Thanks to the MePo folks for hosting this forum and saving me from having bought hardware to work with software that won't use it - and also for all of your selfless hard work!
- Moderator
- #936
Hey Blue Energy,
In my experience, as long as Dolby Digital is turned off on my STB's, MP and the TV server have worked great. Its only when you turn on Dolby Digital is when it doesnt work well. Also, some have had issues with the HD-PVR's locking up every so often, but I have not had that issue since the 1.0.2 builds (a while back.)
So, overall my experience has been positive and I would highly recommend at least trying it out. BUT, keep in mind that MediaPortal does require some tweeks, so if your looking for something to work directly out of the box you might want to try XBMC. They are working on a PVR version that works with MediaPortal, MythTV and other PVR backends.
Wile E.
- December 15, 2010
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Thanks for your advice, Wile E. You appear a lot during that two+ years - and I appreciate your effort. In what I am about to ask - please keep in mind that I'm a total soft-pvc newbie - but I do make a living in the computer world. I'm totally willing to tweak awhile but, ultimately and after not too long (not even two years...) I want to stop tweaking and just use it.
It seems like you would have to use two ir blasters to do what I'm trying to do. The HD PVR's that I want to buy come with one each. From what I have gathered, MePo can operate only one or the other of them. Is that true? I think I recall that you have a work around for that I think involves connecting something to your set top box (or at least I believe that's what STB stands for). I don't think my cable box comes with something that would do that. I'll have to do it with an IR blaster and it does seem handy that I would have two right there in the HD PVRs if the software I use knows how to talk to them. Otherwise, what would I need to buy to work around MePo not talking to what I already have?
I understood about the HD PVRs locking up - but not that it had been fixed in 1.0.2. That's good intel.
I have a friend using MythTV to serve multiple XBMC front ends. It works great for him. But the XBMC recorder isn't ready for prime time and - I only have one spot I want to watch TV from - it seems unfortunate to devote two computers to that one purpose. MePo would be perfect if only it would work for everything I want to do.
Another issue for me is that depending upon what I need it to do, my new front end machine's horsepower will be larger or smaller. If it is all going to happen in that one box - I'll need more power. If the recording is going to happen elsewhere - I won't need as much. I'd like to figure out what I need to buy before I try it out for that reason. The machine I'm writing to you on is a P4 running W2K - so I can't even play with it without buying stuff.
One advantage of two machines though is heat dispersal and noise reduction. There's no reason to have the recorder in the same room with the TV. I could use 805.11n to move recordings from one to the other. The i7 box I use in my music studio is a wonder, but it requires a lot of cooling and cooling is noise unless you work very hard to avoid it. I had to go to great lengths not to hear that box in my recordings. Splitting up the job would cause my front end machine to produce less heat/noise without much effort. Even so - I hate the idea of having to devote two computers to watch one TV. It's just... wrong somehow.
- August 14, 2007
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I've been using a HDPVR for years now (check the thread). I still use it....to record stuff. Went back to cable boxes for live TV before my wife killed me. It is absolutely still a "tinker/hobby" type project, and you need to be ready for that. If you are thinking that right now there is an end game, and after some work and setup you'll get to a point where it will be the all in one solution many of us dream of.....not the case. It's good. But not great, and definitely not ready for prime time. It "mostly" works, except when it doesn't. After a while you will end up like 99% of the rest of this thread - wondering why you bothered, and thinking, well, a cable box for live TV and the occasional recording isn't that bad, or expensive.
Like I said, it's a great way, right now, to archive shows. Recording, especially with a first-class addon like 4TheRecord, works great. However, as a live TV DVR it's not reliable enough to where the non-tech heads in your house are going to want to deal with it. Trust me on this one.
P.S. Also, just give up now on the idea that you can use either of the blasters built in to the HDPVR. Just take my word for it, you don't even want to bother going down that road. Save your sanity and spend $30 on a Microsoft brand MCE remote/remote dongle. You can use any universal remote with it, it will blast two boxes, and it's one of the few pieces of this puzzle I've found over the last two years that works, consistently, with little effort. Well worth the extra $30, BELIEVE ME.
Like I said, it's a great way, right now, to archive shows. Recording, especially with a first-class addon like 4TheRecord, works great. However, as a live TV DVR it's not reliable enough to where the non-tech heads in your house are going to want to deal with it. Trust me on this one.
P.S. Also, just give up now on the idea that you can use either of the blasters built in to the HDPVR. Just take my word for it, you don't even want to bother going down that road. Save your sanity and spend $30 on a Microsoft brand MCE remote/remote dongle. You can use any universal remote with it, it will blast two boxes, and it's one of the few pieces of this puzzle I've found over the last two years that works, consistently, with little effort. Well worth the extra $30, BELIEVE ME.
- Moderator
- #939
ixian & SJeffrey,
When you guys say its not reliable, could you be a little more specific? Since 1.0.2, my HD-PVR's no longer lock up and work perfect with live tv. They start/change channels fast and never stop working. Day after day, they play fine and record fine. BUT again, I have Dolby Digital turned off on my STB's and I dont use 4 The Record.
Blue Energy,
Ixian is correct in his recommendation of the MCE remote and transciever. You can easily use the blasters with the IR Server Suite to change channels on your STB.
Wile E.
When you guys say its not reliable, could you be a little more specific? Since 1.0.2, my HD-PVR's no longer lock up and work perfect with live tv. They start/change channels fast and never stop working. Day after day, they play fine and record fine. BUT again, I have Dolby Digital turned off on my STB's and I dont use 4 The Record.
Blue Energy,
Ixian is correct in his recommendation of the MCE remote and transciever. You can easily use the blasters with the IR Server Suite to change channels on your STB.
Wile E.
- August 14, 2007
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I don't use DD either.
A lot depends on the provider. When I had Dish Network, I'd get a "freeze" with Live tv about once a day or so - enough to annoy the crap out of everyone in my house. Even with the latest HDPVR drivers/firmware (which contained unspecified fixes for Dish) it happened.
I got rid of Dish a year ago and went OTA for a long while using the HDHR. This more or less worked all the time.
About 2 months ago we returned to paid tv, this time with our local cable provider. On a lark I hooked the HDPVR back up. It worked, I'd say, about 95% of the time - every 3 or 4 days we'd get a stutter that wouldn't go away, or a channel freeze. Enough that so my wife, who hated the system back when we had Dish with a passion, threw down the gauntlet.
So now I essentially have one non-DVR HD cable box hooked up to the HDPVR which I use to archive shows. With 4TheRecord - which has the best web interface of any HTPC TV client, and near-Tivo like recording and scheduling capabilities, far beyond the stock MePo client - I can schedule up to a month in advance, using it's ScheduledDirect plugin. Recently another user wrote an addon that pulls TheTVDb.org info for shows and renames them to the appropriate format (s01e01-showname-episodename.ts) so plugins like MyTVSeries can use them. This way I can fill in and maintain a bunch of TV series for later viewing. In this regard, everything works great.
Live TV though just isn't all the way there for me. It never has been. I've run the whole gauntlet over the years - driver updates, codec updates, trying different codecs, monitoring codecs in use with Graphstudio, checking my network (it's a wired gigabit net in my house), using the right switches, swapping out cables, using RTSP streaming, using direct TS file reading, you name it. Recorded programs play back without error, every time. Other movies, media, etc in MePo also work without a hitch. Live TV usually works, but locks up just enough that no one in my house will put up with it.
So we're back to a two-box system. For "regular" TV they use the cable box, where they can pause tv and record the occasional show using a remote and interface they understand perfectly, because that is a system that was designed to be simple and user friendly and it never, ever locks up on them in the middle of something. For archived stuff, movies, whole series, etc, they switch inputs to the MePo box where they can do all that, watch Hulu or Netflix (thanks to your great addon!) and all the rest. It's not quite the all-in-one HTPC solution we all dream of, but it's good enough, and it works, all the time.
A lot depends on the provider. When I had Dish Network, I'd get a "freeze" with Live tv about once a day or so - enough to annoy the crap out of everyone in my house. Even with the latest HDPVR drivers/firmware (which contained unspecified fixes for Dish) it happened.
I got rid of Dish a year ago and went OTA for a long while using the HDHR. This more or less worked all the time.
About 2 months ago we returned to paid tv, this time with our local cable provider. On a lark I hooked the HDPVR back up. It worked, I'd say, about 95% of the time - every 3 or 4 days we'd get a stutter that wouldn't go away, or a channel freeze. Enough that so my wife, who hated the system back when we had Dish with a passion, threw down the gauntlet.
So now I essentially have one non-DVR HD cable box hooked up to the HDPVR which I use to archive shows. With 4TheRecord - which has the best web interface of any HTPC TV client, and near-Tivo like recording and scheduling capabilities, far beyond the stock MePo client - I can schedule up to a month in advance, using it's ScheduledDirect plugin. Recently another user wrote an addon that pulls TheTVDb.org info for shows and renames them to the appropriate format (s01e01-showname-episodename.ts) so plugins like MyTVSeries can use them. This way I can fill in and maintain a bunch of TV series for later viewing. In this regard, everything works great.
Live TV though just isn't all the way there for me. It never has been. I've run the whole gauntlet over the years - driver updates, codec updates, trying different codecs, monitoring codecs in use with Graphstudio, checking my network (it's a wired gigabit net in my house), using the right switches, swapping out cables, using RTSP streaming, using direct TS file reading, you name it. Recorded programs play back without error, every time. Other movies, media, etc in MePo also work without a hitch. Live TV usually works, but locks up just enough that no one in my house will put up with it.
So we're back to a two-box system. For "regular" TV they use the cable box, where they can pause tv and record the occasional show using a remote and interface they understand perfectly, because that is a system that was designed to be simple and user friendly and it never, ever locks up on them in the middle of something. For archived stuff, movies, whole series, etc, they switch inputs to the MePo box where they can do all that, watch Hulu or Netflix (thanks to your great addon!) and all the rest. It's not quite the all-in-one HTPC solution we all dream of, but it's good enough, and it works, all the time.