so who has a stable Digital OTA build in USA (1 Viewer)

pderbidge1

New Member
February 9, 2009
3
0
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I've posted this same question at the GBPVR forum. I'm at a point that I want to try this again and I liked both GBPVR and Media portal and it just comes down to whether or not one of these will be stable enough for me. your comments are appreciated. So here is the question:

Does anyone have a stable HTCP that works for playback of over the air Digital Broadcasts as well as recordings of Digital OTA Broadcasts? I am not looking for QAM tuner support or any cable/sattelite recording type HTCP's as I have found people who seem to do that well, but rather just a good ol plain DVR for OTA HD only. Before I delv into this again I need to make sure that it is possible to make it stable. My definition of stable is = less than 1 to 3 crashes a month, prefferably no crashing for reliable recordings. For some reason the OTA recordings seem to be the hardest thing to get right, at least in the USA

Background:
about a year ago I tried to delv into the HTPC thinking it's been around long enough it should be pretty stable by now. About 3 mos later, countless hours I didn't have and a very frusterated wife I had to give up. I settled for a dvd/hD recorder. Sure it had a clunky interface not unsimilar to scheduling recordings with a VCR but it worked right out of the box and I didn't have to have a monthly subcription to make it work such as TIVO, etc... although I did consider it. I used both Media Portal and GBPVR and favored GBPVR as it seemed to be more stable but still had quite a few crashes.

Problems I had:

I tried multiple codecs but some channels were smooth while others looked choppy, Not pixelated but rather stuttered movements as if it were a codec issue. i tried PureVideo, coreAVC and just about every codec imaginable as well as FFDshow but nothing seemed to solve the issue.

HardwareI tried:

I had a PCchips MOBO capable of core 2 duo cpu's but It just has a 3.0Ghz single core Celeron in it.

The MOBO had an AGP slot for video so I tried an Nvidia 6200 and a 7200 and an ATI 2400 pro.

I tried the Hauppauge HVR1600 and ATI 650. The ATI seemed to have the best picture.

I had 1 gig of RAM, I probably needed 2.

I had a 320 Gig Western Digital SATA drive.


Case cooling was not an issue and the cpu was always running around 40C

The reason I'm am looking at this again is I am wondering if my system was just not up to snuff. If I get some good feedback from folks who are doing OTA recordings successfully then I will try it again.

Thanks, in advance, for your replies.
 

garry

Portal Pro
December 11, 2005
227
17
California
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I'd say the system wasn't fast enough. Smooth HD playback over AGP isn't likely. I use a PCI-E 8500GT and it works great for ATSC and Hauppuage HD-PVR playback using the Arcsoft codec. I had a 2nd client with an AGP NVidia 6200 and had the same problems as you, I recently upgraded it to a PCI-E 8500GT and it works great now as well.
 

pderbidge1

New Member
February 9, 2009
3
0
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
Thanks Garry, this is the type of advice I am looking for. I had suspected the AGP interface to be a possible issue as well. Can you tell me; are you using your system for actual Over the Air/Antenna recordings or are you using it for cable/Sattelite recordings? How stable has it been for you? How many crashes do you experience in a month? Thanks.
 

garry

Portal Pro
December 11, 2005
227
17
California
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I'm using it for OTA HD ATSC, SD satellite recordings, and HD satellite recordings. I have 5 tuners:

Hauppuage HD-PVR connected to DirectTV H-21 HD receiver
Hauppuage HVR-1600 (atsc) connected to antenna
Hauppuage HVR-1600 (s-video) connected to DirectTV SD receiver
Hauppuage HVR-1800 (atsc) connected to antenna
Hauppuage HVR-1800 (s-video) connected to DirectTV SD receiver

The TV Service is extremely stable, I don't remember the last time it crashed. I have occasional ATSC reception issues now that I live ~50 miles from the broadcast antennas, but ATSC was flawless when I was 3mi away.

The MP frontend will lock up every once in a while, but it hasn't since up built & installed the latest SVN a few days ago.
 

pderbidge1

New Member
February 9, 2009
3
0
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
More questions

Thanks again Garry,

I have a few more questions. What CPU do you have and do you know the chipset on the motherboard? How much RAM do you have? I see you have both the HVR-1600 and 1800 hooked up to the antenna for the ATSC. Do you have a preference between the two? I think that covers it. Thanks!
 

garry

Portal Pro
December 11, 2005
227
17
California
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
TV Server/client 1:

XP SP3
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
Asus M2A-VM
4GB RAM
BFG Nvidia 8500GT pci-e
3x1TB Seagate drives
Hauppuage HVR-1600
Hauppuage HVR-1800
Hauppuage HD-PVR

client 2:
Vista Ultimate
Intel Pentium D820
Asus P5B-VM
2GB RAM
BFG Nvidia 8500GT pci-e
60GB drive


The HVR-1600 and HVR-1800 seem to perform the same. They even use the same drivers, only noticeable difference is pci-e x1 vs pci.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom