UK SKYTV Set top box (1 Viewer)

[jimbo19]

Nice guide Bolders - is there anyway to grab more than one type of data ?
i.e. I have a floppy DTV-S2 with Cam for my sky , but I also have a hybrid dvb-s dvb-t card that allows me to get freeview and freesat ,
so if possible would like web epg for all three , so I have 14 day guide data for all channels

 

[bolders]

Hi Jimbo

Im afraid i dont know if you can grab more than one type of data or if im sure I know exactly what you mean by that lol.

Are you refering to having the same channel on different sources which have a slightly different schedules. For exmple I get UKTV History via NTL and also from my DVB-T tuner. The NTL version transmits for the whole day but the DVB-T version only transmits for half the day hence I need two seperate epg listings.
In this instance I do not merge the channels - I have two channel mappings instead. When getting the guide data I can get both listings from radio times. There is guide data for UKTV history cable/satellite and one for freeview. I simply assign the cable/sat version to the NTL version of the channel and the freeview verson to the DVB-T channel.

Most of my DVB chanels are identical to the NTL channels so I merge them leaving only 1 listing for the channel in the tv guide. The only other channel I have that is different is virgin 1.

Not sure if Ive helped at all or if ive completely missunderstood your question. If you can give some examples (channel names and what tuner they are on etc) I will try to help you figure something out but at this point im only realy informed in areas where Ive had to figure things out for my particular setup. I dont have DVB-S (yet) so Im not sure on what channels you get or how they would differ from your sky or DVB channels.

bolders

 

[jimbo19]

Hi Bolders , essentially that is what I mean , sorry if I didn't explain it very well . I have managed to get most of the epg i need using the excellent xmltv gui and post processors in it. It's way faster than the command line method . Takes well under a minute for everything !! Only problem I'm having now is working out how to combine and map all the channels that are the same !!! i.e. BBC on freeview , freesat and sky - lol


Cheers

Jim

 

[wollo]

Jim, Which postprocessors did you use?

 

[Promark]

hi all

I am thinking of connecting my Sky+ box to my HTPC running MP 1.0 and TV Server

how have you guys connected the sky box? is it an s video cable from the the STB to the s video on the tv card?
If it is an s video cable what is the picture quality like?

Also apart from setting up the channels and the epg setup mentioned in this thread is there any other config needed in MP?

Thanks in advance for any help

mark

 

[bolders]

Hi Mark

I have my ntl box connected to my tv card (PVR 150) using a composite video connection because my STB does NOT output S-Video.

S-Video is the better option as it seperates the chroma and luma signals into 2 conductors whereas composite video combines all signals into a single conductor (simple explaination lol). So given the choice of the two S-Video is the best and I would use this if your STB supports it.

For reference the quality you will get from various connections (from best to worst) is as follows

digital - DVI/ HDMI etc
Component Video
S-Video
Composite Video

I could'nt say exactly how good the quality will be via S-Video as I cant use it but with my composite connection the picture is not quite as bright and has slightly reduced sharpness when compared to using a scart connection from STB direct to LCD TV. Dispite this i find the picture quality perfectly acceptable and the added features of MP more than make up for the slight reduction in quality (especially since i found the option to turn up the sharpness on my PVR 150).
Be aware you will never get a picture that is identical in quality, to a direct connection from STB to TV, when using composite or S-Video. However I think that a STB with component out and connected to a hauppauge HDPVR may well do the job - this is my next step but i need to get a V+ box in order to get component outputs. I think for sky only the HD box has component out but I could be wrong.

The area of setup that you havent mentioned is blasting IR codes to the STB but other than that I think you have covered the rest, however its a bit difficult to comment without knowing what sort of hardware you are using (remote, IR receiver/blaster, TV card, TV and what sofware you plan to use [i recomend IR server suite] would all be useful info)

bolders

 

[Promark]

Thanks for the detailed reply mate

Seems like i have failed at the first hurdle, my sky+ box does have an s video output, so i connected to the s video in on my Videomate s350 dvb s card. Manually added a channel to test, but it is not added to the list to be able to map it to the card.

After doing a bit of reading this seems a limitation of MP not being able to use the the analogue input on a dvb s card https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/get-support-90/using-analog-input-dvb-s-card-37601/

So it looks like i will have to get an analogue card to be able to do this

 

[evolution2]

Hi
I'm newish to this game and am from New Zealand.
I have a DVB-S tuner card and have free sattelite channels through it. Have set up the guide.
I have now got a PVR 150 card and am trying to set up my SKY decoder to run with all the channels going through it.
My main question is how do I map my channels to the 150? It just says "Channel not mapped"
When I have this sorted will try the blaster stuff as have MCE remote

Thanks Brendon