NTL Digital recording switching MEDIA PC

Stoner

I'm trying to find out if I can auto switch my NTL box so that a media pc with MS media edition 2005 can record and array of stations and switch the stations itself.
I have been told that I'd need to get some sort of control from the box to a PC to allo the PC to switch over the stations. Has anyone ever heard of this ?
I have one of the newer silver small NTL boxes.

Thanks again

I've emailed NTL hopfully they will direct me

paconnors

hi there when you go into your personal planner you can set reminders and the box will even switch channell with a function called autoview http://www.ntl.com/locales/ie/en/athome/dtv/epg/epg.html

MrPinK

Stoner wrote:

I have been told that I'd need to get some sort of control from the box to a PC to allo the PC to switch over the stations. Has anyone ever heard of this ?

What you need is an IR Blaster, something like this. As for recommending one in particular, I'm afraid I've never used one before. The best thing to do is first decide what PVR software you're going to use for your recording, and then see what models other users have gotten working with it.

Stoner

thanks MrPink, its all coming together now. I'm going for windows media edition 2005, i saw that some of the others here seem to be able to do what I want to do I'm glad i have this info now. There is good bit of a learning curve to this media pc lark

Thanks also mike I was thinking about the reminder service as another way out of it but i did not know that it would auto switch for me

pastor

Stoner wrote:

thanks MrPink, its all coming together now. I'm going for windows media edition 2005, i saw that some of the others here seem to be able to do what I want to do I'm glad i have this info now. There is good bit of a learning curve to this media pc lark

Thanks also mike I was thinking about the reminder service as another way out of it but i did not know that it would auto switch for me

Hi Stoner

MCE 2005 is a gret option but currently does not have an Irish EPG this will change in October when MCE2005 is officially released here. An update will be made available for early adopters to include Irelands EPG it is code named Emerald.

I have not used NTL Digital with my system as I have SKY. Once I got the EPG sorted (using Belfast post code and changing channel numbers and names to suit the Irish lineup) MCE2005 worked great. I have been using MCE since the first version. It still has some small problems but hopefully they will be fixed in the Emerald update. If I can be of any other assistance please dont hesitate to ask.

Paul

The Sisco Kid

Apologies if this is a really stupid question, but how do you hook your Sky box / or NTL box to your PC? Do you have to have a special cable / satellite TV tuner card to allow this?

I have a regular Hauppauge TV Tuner and can receive the regular NTL channel line up on my PC (and have used MediaPortal as a Media Centre). I also have NTL digital but never really thought it possible to hook the PC directly to the digiboxes.....?

Stoner

thanks for the info Pastor

pastor

The Sisco Kid wrote:

Apologies if this is a really stupid question, but how do you hook your Sky box / or NTL box to your PC? Do you have to have a special cable / satellite TV tuner card to allow this?

I have a regular Hauppauge TV Tuner and can receive the regular NTL channel line up on my PC (and have used MediaPortal as a Media Centre). I also have NTL digital but never really thought it possible to hook the PC directly to the digiboxes.....?

Hi

I connect my Sky+ box to my PC via svideo through my Hauppauge TV Tuner (150MCE) you could connect your digital box via a scart to composate or svideo depending on the input on your tv card. You can also connect a Sky box via the RF out conector. The NTL box only has one scart if I remenber rightly? Hope this helps.

I have installed MediaPortal but never got round to using it. What is your experience, is it easy to setup and use?

Thanks

Paul

The Sisco Kid

Thanks for that pastor! I will try the S-Video connection...

I think MediaPortal is great, although I would recommend waiting until version 0.2 which I think is planned for November. I had problem tuning in the stations and getting the EPG to work with the older versions, but a little persistence and trawling through the forums paid off. I think they are working on improving this for the next release.

I can't compare with MCE as haven't got it (and can't buy it off the shelf) but would be tempted especially if it ships with the new Xbox....

FrankGrimes

Hey Stoner,

I’m in a similar situation to you: starting out as an MCE novice. I’ve just built my first PC, which went surprisingly well since I didn’t know my PCI-Express from my AGP a short month ago but she’s up and running nay bother.

I’m now in the middle of setting up MCE – which is like a program you launch from XP Pro (the same version you’re used to). You HAVE to have an MCE remote to setup MCE and this should come with an IR Receiver for picking up signals from the remote AND an IR Blaster which will forward your instructions to the NTL set-top box allowing you to change channels etc. You schedule recordings in MCE and it sorts it out.

You need an MCE compatible graphics card and also a TV tuner. I’ve gone for the Hauppage 500 PVR MCE and so far so good as I can record one channel while watching another, but in fairness I only set this up last night and was feeding the TV signal (normal cable –haven’t setup digital yet) from the FM port on my NTL cable box as I had my broadband connected to the TV port so the reception was piss poor but the way it functions just blew me away – the whole MCE interface is pure shlick.

Checkout http://www.avforums.com and http://www.thegreenbutton.com for all the info you could need on MCE.

You’ll need to install a video decoder (Power DVD seems to be working fine for me) and make sure you setup XP Pro and all your software and drivers (antivirus, firewalls, graphics drivers etc.) before you even think about setting up MCE – starting it from a stable base is much better, and save your system setup before setting up MCE.

The Rollup 2 is out there on the web (torrent) since yesterday but apparently it doesn’t support the Irish EPG yet so we’ll have to use the manual workaround in the thread in this forum until it eventually arrives (hopefully in the version of the update that will be released on windows update this month).

Gimme a shout if there’s anything I can help with cos I may have gone thru it recently.

Stoner

Thanks Frank,

I hit a little bit of a setback as the guys I was hoping to get the gear from dont ship to Ireland and I'd like to sell guns to Sadam before I'd touch Komplett again. Once I track the case I want I'll order the rest, overclockers and scan have all the other stuff but i want the case to look nice ( at about 100 euro) Looking forward to getting stuck in, I take your point on the MS remote etc.

Stoner

Stoner

Ok lads ,

I finally got round to ordering the stuff i needed.

I've yet to get the ram and the hard drives but I know where to go.

I'm short the following

A) an IR blaster for NTL that has been used in ireland,
how are you getting on with your system Frank?
Tuner cards can you get one that will take a direct feed from a satalite for the free to view/air stuff
C) an analogue tuner card ( the easy bit i guess)
D) nice quite DVD +/- RW has to be quiet.

building the PC is not an issue, the tuner cards will be though, I'm going to use the onboard sound on my mother board and feed a surround sound system so ythe sound is no longer an issue.

Any help would be appreciated

I've attached my up to date list, eventually got my case from DABS ( not delivered yet) but they were good enough to get it in for me, got other stuff from Sca, ey were very good, I over ordered on the processor and it was a piece of cake sendng it back for a refund, complared to Komplett

FrankGrimes

Hey Stoner,

I've just been using NTL Analogue till now as I haven't had the time to sort it out. Gonna give it a good look this weekend and will decide if I need to buy an IR translator then.

The MCE remote has a receiver that connects to your PC via USB. there are also two IR emitters which plug into the receiver and it should work like this: you press button on MCE remote, receiver picks this up and translates it to format the set-top box understands and then sends that instruction to the STP (you stick the emitter on the front.)

So in most cases you don't need to buy an separate IR blaster, but some NTL boxes use a different standard so a separate device is needed. For now you should fire ahead as you'll only really find out if you need it by trying, and worst case you can setup with basic analogue only to keep you going till the new device arrives.

I'll post details if I need another IR blaster.