Gb-pvr

Khannie

http://www.gbpvr.com

Has anyone here used this?

I bought the bits to put together a MythTV box. It turned into a horrible nightmare. First trying to get X displaying on the TVOUT of my PVR350 (achieved it....then did a kernel upgrade and lost the ability to use my wireless NIC, reverting wasn't an option), then after scrapping that, trying to get my built in ATI card to display on TVOUT wouldn't work.

Absolute nightmare. X(

Anyway, back on topic. Has anyone here used this? It looks pretty good (though not nearly as fully featured as myth)

Does it work with remote controls?

Tom Dunne

I feel your pain brother. I started off on the Linux route too and quickly got cheesed off.

As for GB-PVR, yip, I've used it. Pretty good all right, but I ditched it the minute I found Media Portal Now that's one serious piece of software. I found GB-PVR to be very tempramental, it works most of the time, if it was in the mood. However, I have had very few problems with Media Portal and they have just released a newer version last Saturday.

It seems to work with everything. I haven't quite got it to work with my Hauppauge PVR-250 USB remote, but there are details out there on how to do it.

Try it out, it's worth it and it's free.

Khannie

tom dunne wrote:

I feel your pain brother. I started off on the Linux route too and quickly got cheesed off.

In a weird way, hearing that that made me feel great. I learned absolutely loads about linux trying to get myth set up, but TBH, if proper geeks like us can't use it, the average user is properly fecked. Widely depolyed desktop linux is still a long way off, and it's not because Microsoft's so great. I digress.

tom dunne wrote:

As for GB-PVR, yip, I've used it. Pretty good all right, but I ditched it the minute I found Media Portal Now that's one serious piece of software. I found GB-PVR to be very tempramental, it works most of the time, if it was in the mood. However, I have had very few problems with Media Portal and they have just released a newer version last Saturday.

It seems to work with everything. I haven't quite got it to work with my Hauppauge PVR-250 USB remote, but there are details out there on how to do it.

Try it out, it's worth it and it's free.

Sound! Great to hear of a success story like that. I'll give that a bash. Possibly this evening. I was on the verge of selling the box. I mean /on the verge/ of it, but I have a limited selection of channels out here in the sticks, so making the most of them would be nice

rsynnott

Khannie wrote:

..., trying to get my built in ATI card to display on TVOUT wouldn't work.

Ah, ATI on Linux. Well... the thing is... oh, just look here:
http://rage3d.org/board/forumdisplay.php?f=88

You'll be needing the latest version of ATI's own proprietary driver, I think. Then it will work. About the WiFi card, what is it? Are you using native drivers or a Windows wrapper (NDISWrapper, DriverLoader)? It is possible to get this working, but you're likely to face the same problems with a lot of Linux-based PVRs.

Tom Dunne

Khannie wrote:

I learned absolutely loads about linux trying to get myth set up, but TBH, if proper geeks like us can't use it, the average user is properly fecked.

You said it, brother.

(I really don't know what this "brother" crack is with me today )

Khannie wrote:

I mean /on the verge/ of it, but I have a limited selection of channels out here in the sticks, so making the most of them would be nice

On a related matter, how's your Perl and XML? I am knocking together some perl scripts that will pull down TV listings info for Ireland to populate Media Portal. What this means is that you will be able to use the PVR functionality of Media Portal to record the Irish channels, along with the UK channels which are available already.

Are you interested?

jozi

Do both gb-pvr and Media-Portal start with window or do the have to be opened from windows?
I'm looking into setting up a htpc with some parts i have lying around just dont have a clue about the software site yet.
I take it i could just install windows 2x on different partitions and instal either along with 1 to try it out on my current pc?

Jozi

Tom Dunne

Media Portal can be set to autostart when Windows starts, can't remember about GB-PVR.

What I did was set up a seperate account for Media Portal (I'm on XP). When the normal user accounts are used, it has to be started manually.

But when the Media Portal account is logged into, the software starts automatically.

jozi

Had not taught of doing it that way.
Going to look into both later tonight and check them out

Khannie

tom dunne wrote:

On a related matter, how's your Perl and XML? I am knocking together some perl scripts that will pull down TV listings info for Ireland to populate Media Portal. What this means is that you will be able to use the PVR functionality of Media Portal to record the Irish channels, along with the UK channels which are available already.

Are you interested?

Sure am brother (quite like that brother thing you have going there). I got Irish TV listings through XMLTV on myth before though. Just want to make sure you're not reinventing the wheel. They're under the british listings.

My perl is good. It's a serious percentage of my job. XML is, eh, moderate, but there are perl libraries to look after all that XML jazz for you

rsynnott: Yeah, I know ATI are rubbish with their linux support, though I didn't realise just /how/ rubbish until I tried to use the card (had my 9800 pro working allright with it a while back). Don't think I'll be buying another gfx card off them as a result of it.

I was using ndiswrapper for wifi. Everything was going very smoothly (100% amazed at how well ndiswrapper worked. Genius.) until the kernel upgrade and ndiswrapper stopped working. Needed the kernel upgrade to use latest version of apt-get repositories though, so it was a catch-22.

Suffice to say, my patience was exhausted. I put weeks of effort into it.

Tom Dunne

Khannie wrote:

I got Irish TV listings through XMLTV on myth before though. Just want to make sure you're not reinventing the wheel. They're under the british listings.

That's strange, I must have missed it. It doesn't mention it on the xlmtv.org website, does it? I spent a good while searching the web before I decided to do it myself.

No point re-inventing the wheel then.

Khannie

Yeah, just the UK listings (think it gets them from tvtimes.co.uk). You pretend you live in the UK, then just ask for RTE1, etc.

In myth, it was under the "alternative UK listings" (default one didn't work for anything).

edit: Actually, it was someone on here who told me about it I think. Here or www.byopvr.com, but I think it was here.

The Sisco Kid

It's fairly straightforward to download the Irish listings using the xmltv instructions by pretending you live in the UK (as Khannie says) and then requesting all the Irish channels, they were all there including TG4.

Here's a link explaining what to do...
http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=313&highlight=xmltv

Generally Media Portal seems to be really good, although I've not been able to view the tv through MP yet and they don't seem to have support from Real Audio which is a bit of a pain, especially for BBC Radio streaming.

jozi

Gave media portal ago yesterday, didnt use it all to long but liked what i seen.
There's lots of configuration option for it anyway.
1 thing i noticed dvd's dont display full screen, used a monitor with high res, and i think it was showing the film at a res tv's can take.