Media Portal and Hauppauge PVR350 question (1 Viewer)

[Big Dummy]

:?

I'm a complete newbie to TV tuner cards and such, so some of these questions probably seem ignorant to you experienced users.

First off, my machine:
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OS: Windows XP Professional SP2
CPU: Intel 2.8 GHz
Ram: 1GB RDR Rambus
Video Card: nVidia Ti4200 4x AGP
TV Tuner Card: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR350 (NTSC)
Soundcard: Creative Audigy
Monitor: Gateway 18in. LCD FPD1830
HDD: 2 WD 120GB Caviar SE (Internal), 1 LaCie 250GB d2 Extreme-Triple Interface (External)
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So, as you can see, I think I'm pretty much covered in the hardware dept., but have had trouble using both the WinTV2000 that came w/the card, and the GB-PVR software I tried. Before I get to my questions, I'll give some background since it may help.

The main reason I bought the Hauppauge card is because of its hardware encoder/decoder since I wanted to convert old VHS tapes of family to DVDs. On my first attempt to convert VHS to DVD, it seemed to work fine, except for one thing--there was "flickering" at the bottom of the video. This particular VHS tape was less than a year old (my nephew graduating-had a professional record the event) and I watched it on my VCR and the tape was fine. Older VHS tapes had this problem also.

Also, recorded some football games using WinTV 2000 and GB-PVR and both produced problems. The WinTV 2000 app didn't record the whole 3 hrs. and 45 mins. of the game (I set it to record that long). GB-PVR recorded another one the next week and toward the end of the recording, there were spots where both the video and audio would speed up, kinda like when you fast forward a video. Also, it had spots where the audio and video were out of sync. In all fairness, I'm assuming these problems (or at least most of them) were caused by some driver conflicts in my computer.

I reinstalled Windows XP and have all the updates. Obviously, I want to avoid such things even though I realize any program can have problems.

Finally, my questions:
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1) If I install Media Portal, do I still need to intall all the Hauppage drivers and their updates? If so, do I need to install the WinTV 2000 app as well or just the drivers?

2) I searched but couldn't find anything--does Media Portal or any of its plug-ins allow me to hook my VCR up to the Hauppauge card so I can convert VHS tapes to DVD? If so, I'll just have to create a new channel and set for the VCR, correct?

3) Does anyone know of an app that will allow me to scan my system for driver conflicts?

4) Also, I can't find anything on cutting out commercials from recorded shows. A friend says there's a way, but he doesn't know how or about any apps/plug-ins that will do this. Is there such an app/plug-in that will cut out commercials in case I want to burn the show to DVD?

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

 

[lcdguy]

first off, congrats thats a great tv-tuner i have one my self. secondly the chipset on your motherboard is it a VIA or something else as hauppage has an upadte for via motherboard users. Next how much freespace is on the drive your trying to record to as these files can get very big very fast. 90 minute vhs movies is about 3-6 GB depedning on quailty. For removing the comemrcials, you should be able to remove them with any video editor but there is nothing that i know of that will do it automatically. Not sure on the driver conflict scanner either.

you don't necesarrily need the wintv application but you defintely need the drivers for it to work properly. As media portal is only an appliaction not an OS it needs to communicate with the systems drivers. Finally with the bad spot on the captured video if your using a via board that could be it, also try defragmenting your HD's. Other than that i have no clue as i have made about 6 recordings of some movies i am converting to DVD and all of them have been flawless.

I hope this gives you some answers, and that your problem be solved. Incase your interested here are the specs of the computer my tuner currently hooked up to.

AMD A64 3000+
1GB Corsair DDR
36GB Raptor Boot Driver
2x200GB Drives in 400GB Volume
MSI K8N Neo Plat NForce 3 Mobo
HDA X-Mystique 7.1 Sound Card
BFG Geforce 6600GT OC

 

[Big Dummy]

lcdguy:

You asked: "the chipset on your motherboard is it a VIA or something else?"

First off, I'm clueless about motherboards (and many other things), so I'm not even sure what VIA is. I seen that link in the support section, but still am not sure how to tell. The mobo is a Intel Lexington II and I searched Intel but didn't find anyway to tell. Also, I found something on Google (wish I'd saved the URL) about updating BIOS and motherboards, several people talked about updating and how it could cause problems.

Anyway, I went ahead and put in my Gateway Recovery CD which has an option to update system drivers (i.e., mobos, my integrated NIC, modem, etc.) and updated to the latest drivers. Afterwards, I had some problems while installing the software for my scanner and my UPS. Searched Google again and found something about the new .NET Framework 2.0 and how it how been causing problems. Uninstalled it and now have version 1.0 and the 1.1 Hotfix and everything seems okay--no problems so far.

You said: "also try defragmenting your HD's"

When I first posted this topic, I had just got done reinstalling Windows XP Pro SP2 and have only used it to check email and browse a few sites, so I don't think a defrag is in order yet. Plus, before reinstalling Windows, I did defrag using Raxco's PerfectDisk 7.0 and that didn't solve the problem.

So, could you please elaborate on VIA and how to tell if my mobo is a VIA mobo? I have Nero 6, but can't find anything in the InfoTool about the mobo type.

Thanks!

P.S. I'm jealous of your setup. I bought my system in March '03 from a Gateway store and didn't take the time to learn that much about RAM and other computer parts. With the new Hauppauge, the LaCie HDD, and everything else, I'm in for over $4,000.

The salesman told me that RDRambus was the next greatest thing and I'd be better to opt for that instead of an P4 HT CPU. My fault for listening to a salesman, I guess. I recently checked just to see if I could find out how much an upgrade was as my system allows 2 GHZ and found it was cheaper to buy a new motherboard with DDRII RAM and even a new CPU.