ASTC Only?

[davea]

I have two questions, since I am almost hopelessly lost, maybe someone can help.

I installed a HVR-1600 card yesterday and all seemed to install according to plan except that it WILL NOT locate any analog channels under WinTV2000 that came with it. I do receive my local digital and HD channels very well. The card is a white box with FM, ASTC digital and analog cable. I only use an antenna for OTA. I did notice during the channel scan that it did not find any analog.

Also, if this is the correct place to post, I did a sample recording of one hour of television. The file recorded as a mpeg and was about 6 GB in size. Is this normal? Under the settings tab my only choice for quality was "DVD 2048 bytes".

[Miller]

There should be 2 coax jacks. One if for digital and the other is for analog. If you get digital cable then the analog will be useless unless you have an antenna and can pick up some analog stations that way (which won't happen after Feb '09 anyway).

That file size seems about right. If you use another program besides WinTV2000 they have different quality settings. I use GBPVR and we have low, medium, and high. Low comes in at just over 1GB/hour.

[davea]

Well, would I then split the signal to go to each of the two inputs on the card or...?


The Hauppauge / WinTv so called "manual" shows there should be seven different choices for recording quality, not on mine.
Also, I tried GBPVR and was unable to scan and locate any channels of any type. It said something about an EPG source, which I assume is where it gets the channels from? I kind of like the Win TV interface, but if you can help with GBPVR, I'll try that.

[Miller]

I haven't used the Win2000 app much so I don't have much help for you there. I thought I remembered a custom recording setting though where you could set a quality level.

As for your inputs, it depends on your cable. If you have analog cable (which most do if they have cable, then you would want one coax cable going to the analog feed and one cable going to the digital feed. That might mean a split, but it depends on your sources. What kind of cable setup do you have exactly? Do you use a box? What kind of tv do you connect to and what kind of connection do you use for the tv?

[davea]

I may have misled you...the HVR-1600 has a cable (analog) input as well as the digital. I have only an antenna on the roof which brings in the local stations very well on this card and three other TVs in the house.
I have the card in my computer and as of now, none of this is hooked up to a TV. Right now I only want to record live TV and burn to DVD. I want to master this part of it before I start my PVR plan and build.

[Miller]

No, I understand now. I just needed to re-read a little. Try antennaweb.org. It should tell you what stations you can get in your area. What kind of tv do you have? I would think that you can get whatever stations on your card that you can get on your tv. Regardless, you'll have to plsit the cable and run into both coax jacks. One for analog and one for digital.

[davea]

Thanks much, I'll head in that direction.

And...one more quick question (for now). Regarding my problems with GBPVR. I did a little more reading and found something about downloading or having access to the program guide. Is this something I pay to subscribe to that I then use to schedule recordings or is it just to see whats on?

[Miller]

EPG data is basically what gives prgrams like GBPVR, SageTV, and BeyondTV their Tivo feel. It's where they get all their tvguide data. If you don't want the EPG you can use it like a self-programmed vcr, but you lose a lot of the polish of the program. If you want the EPG it comes bundled in the price of Sage and BeyondTV. Since GBPVR is free you have to either subscribe ($) to it or find a free option. SchedulesDirect.com offers a free 7-day trial and $20 for a one year subscription and is wdiely used and a good option. https://cttvlistings.net/ is a cheaper option, but I haven't tried them so I can't vouch for their accuracy.

You can always watch LiveTV without using the EPG.