Tom Saurus' Potentially New Computer

[jagabo]

"snow" probably means GBPVR is using the internal tuner and not getting a signal. That would mean you just need to convince it to use the s-video input instead.

[Soopafresh]

Dvr-ms can be difficult to convert to regular MPEG. Lots of A/V sync problems. You'd be wise to stay clear.

[Tom Saurus]

jagabo: I have went through the config part of GBPVR several times and set it up for the S-Video input, but it just doesn't seem to get it. The EPG part works great, but with just snow on my screen, it is useless. Thank you for you for the information you have provided.

If I can just fine tune WinTV 2000 settings a little bit, to better suit my needs, I think I will be satisfied with it. My StarChoice dish has 25 different timers that can be set to run daily, weekly, one time, or m-f or even select days and skip others. StarChoice really did a good job designing their receivers.

I just noticed that WinTV accept my fine tuning the color a little, so that is nice. I think I just need to figure out how to get it to accept what is coming through the yellow composite cable so I can record stuff from the vcr.

Soopafresh: I thought GBPVR could be set to record in Mpeg2. I think I will probably stick with WinTV 2000. Thank you for sharing this information.

[jagabo]

The MPEG settings in the WinTV2000 program are a little tricky. It took me a while to figure out how to use them too. You have to make the changes to bitrate, frame size, etc, then go back to the Configurations tab and use Save Config As to create a new configuration. Then back at the previous dialog you select that new configuration. I guess they do it that way to keep you from messing up the preconfigured settings.

Regarding the composite cable: are you saying you can record from the s-video input but not from the composite input? Even after pressing the little green button to cycle through the inputs? Maybe it just doesn't like your VCR. Does your satellite box have a composite output you can try?

[Tom Saurus]

jagabo: I followed your instructions and was able to set my own preferences to match up with the way I have my ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro set up to record. I also unplugged the s-video and was able to get the composite to work as well. Thank you very much. So far it hasn't dropped any frames, and last night Divx Author was working on a project. When it drops frames, does it indicate it somewhere to let you know? I am really happy with the card now. I am going to download the WinTV Scheduler, and if I can get that working then I will forget about GPVR and stick with this. Once again thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

[jagabo]

WinTV2000 doesn't give any indication of dropped frames. But you have to try really hard to get it to drop frames. I've defragged, converted a video from MPG to Xvid AVI with VirtualDub, ran CHKDSK (all on the same drive) and ran a 3D game all at the same time before I could get it to drop frames.

I use the WinTV Scheduler all the time. It's not as easy as something like GBPVR but it gets the job done.

Another feature that's not obvious: when recording you can press the || button on the little VCR controls pulldown to pause the display. This does not pause the recording. But it reduces WinTV2000's CPU usage to nearly 0.

[Tom Saurus]

jagabo: Thank you for the additional information. I am quite glad I got the Hauppauge Card now.
I joined a Hauppauge mpeg file with an mpeg recorded with the ATI All I Wonder 9800 Pro and both had the same settings and they both went together smoothly.

I will download WinTV Scheduler; I don't think it came with my software and then unistall GBPVR.

Thanks for the hint about using pause to drop the cpu to almost 0. I noticed that WinTV uses about 10 percent CPU resources on my computer, that isn't bad at all.

[Tom Saurus]

I downloaded the WinTV Scheduler and the Video Editor. The WinTV Scheduler worked flawlessly; I am quiet pleased with it. I so used to the ease of Womble that the video editor just seemed very bland, and unappealing.

The only thing has me curious now is wether I should download the tweek tool. I think I should be recording interlaced. I am not sure if WinTV2000 is recording interlaced or not. Some scenes look a tad peculiar on my computer monitor.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this thread. It looks like my new computer is working very well.

[jagabo]

The nanopeg editor is worthless.

You're card is recording interlaced if you are using 720x480 or 352x480. I'm not sure which tweek tool you're refering too. The ones I know of let you adjust things like the temporal noise filtering, sharpness, etc.

If I remember correctly, the default setting for the MPEG decoder that WinTV2000 uses is set to "blend deinterlace" when displaying on the computer. The MPEG file itself is left interlaced. You want to leave it that way when burning DVDs.

[Tom Saurus]

jagabo: Thank you once again for this additional information. The nice thing about having two computers and a network is I can transfer my mpeg captures over to Womble on my older computer and edit them there and authorize them over on that computer with Tmpgenc DVD Author 1.6; so thus the nanopeg editor isn't really needed. It would of been nice to not have to transfer back and forth; but I can live with it.

So it might look peculiar on the computer screen, but once on DVD and watching on the tv screen it will look fine. It is how the decoder is doing it's thing, not the encoder; if I understand you correctly.

The tweeks were made by someone name Armadillo. I think I will just leave it alone, and see what my first DVD's with these captures looks like. I recorded an episode of Coronation Street last night to test it, so when I put that on DVD, I will know. Thank you once again.

[jagabo]

Here's an explanation of interlaced video I wrote for someone a while back:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1545306#1545306

I think that will help you understand the issue.

Armadillo? Amontillado's Hauppauge_tweaker? That program seems like a must-have for PVR-150 owners. It lets you adjust many things the WinTV2000 doesn't. You can adjust the audio if it's distorted (a major complaint of PVR-150 owners), with clean sources (like digital satellite or digital cable) you may want to reduce the temporal noise filtering, you may also want to reduce the sharpness.