Media Portal had built in driver support. Going to try out latest Vista Ultimate soon.

Thanks for the info. Now i got more places to look for bargain.

btw, anyone managed to the PVR-150 to encode using DIVX via software?

I am waiting for the launch of i965 mini-atx (Asus p5e-vm, gigabyte, etc) and match with E6300. just saw that pc-zone reduce E6300 to rm 660.

In this way, I can still keep the HTPC current for 1 to 2 years. Propose following for HTPC.

planned htpc.

1. Asus p5e-vm/Gigabyte G965-s2
2. E6300 buy from singapore
3. 1x320 G HD
4. 7600gs GC
5. 1x1 gb ddr2 667 mhz ram later on another 1 gb
6. Logitech Z5500
7. Creative Audizy 4 - is this necessary. can i just use on board ICH8
8. Hauppage pvr 150 mce - buy from singapore
9. Ciplak casing - i-cute
10. logitech wireless kb + mouse
11. Samsung lcdtv 32" R7

since mediaportal is freeware, i will try it.

hope can still do ffdshow with the above. any comment

rgds.

ccschua, u use your proposed HTPC in living room or bed room？

definitely can use ffdshow. just that the video won't be hardware accelerated.

the system is meant for living room. about 12' x 15'. i try to avoid using expansive hifi equipment. later when hd dvd is more common, i will upgrade to hd dvd.

Sadly, there's no outlets selling HD DVD titles here and not even a single HD DVD player available locally.

However some shops are selling XBOX 360 HD DVD add on but I wouldn't buy that to be connected to my pc since there's no software for it to play HD DVD movies yet.

Hi ya!!!

Just got myself the PVR-150MCE with the blaster kit. Thanks to terence excellent ASTRO guide, i've managed to download all the EPG data into my Windows MCE.
(Eat cow dung, ASTRO MAX!!!!)

Now i've two problems remaining:

1) The sound is quite bad with a lot of noise/static. Any remedies, anyone???
UPDATED: I found that the recorded videos when play on my other PC sounds just fine...meaning the problem is with the somewhere between the tuner->Prodigy sound card-> Yamaha receiver....

2) I need to split my ASTRO signal to both my TV and PC at the same time using either composite or preferably S-video. What kind of splitter do i need in this case? I'm not sure what to look for. Any description of the adapter and splitter would be helpful.

PS: Terenece: ur guide is excellent. However, since i'm uisng TVXB v1009 there's some minor difference in the folder where the ini file is stored. It is now stored in Mydocument\Application Data\tvbx\ini

I also think you should contribute ur TVBX.INI file to TVBX if you haven't already done so. I'm sure there'll be thousands more people find you ini file extremely useful!!
[b]UPDATED[: discovered another quirk...recorded movies are in strange DVR-MS format...not even AVI format. Thus, my hope of easily converting to DIVX is now dashed...looking for more info to convert this crap now...

This post has been edited by Matrix: Dec 4 2006, 06:04 PM

You're welcome. Astro MAX still have killer feature which is watch 1 channel and record another.

You need 3 splitter to split each RCA output from Astro decoder to 2 output. I take a picture post it here later.

EDIT: Here's the pic.


I think that is because you downloaded the windows installer version. I used the linux version which is a zip file. I prefer to keep all the TVxb files in a single folder/location instead of in Documents and Settings. Anyway as long it works, who cares.

Though of doing that, but forgot about it If you don't mind can you help me update them. I'm dam super bz with work nowadays no time for my HTPC at all. Luckily all US TV series that I watch stopped airing until JAN.

I read somewhere (maybe in HTPC-gears.com or HTPCnews.com) that the recorded TV shows format are a wrapper for AVI. So there might b ways to "take it out" from the wrapper and you can then proceed to encode it to Divx.

This post has been edited by terencey: Dec 4 2006, 10:26 PM

Thanks man. Looks like all i need is 2 el-cheapo 1 male RCA=> 2 Female RCA converter.

btw, i've solved my sound problem for the time being. In the Prodigy card driver, i just increase the "latency" to 512 from 256. Dunno what is that, but it works so far. (fingers crossed). This prodigy card is not for people who likes plug n play...really too much settings.

found a tool to convert DVR-MS...called Deskshare Digital Media Converter...but the problem is, converting to AVI/DIVX is a freaking long time. My half hour show has run for 1.5 hours and still not finish converting!!!

This is definitely not an ideal solution....*sigh*

fren, athlon with NF2 for encoding!

you need AMD x2 4200+ or E6300 min. to do that on the fly.

I just wonder if you do a splitter like that, do you get signal loss. I mean picture quality drops.


rgds

UPGRADE!!!!

Astro quality already not that good. Losing abit of signal didn't hurt me that much. I use those with gold connectors. Hopefully it minimize the signal loss.

The DMC don't work. After running over 2 hours, it fails to convert. Btw, i'm running this on my AMD 64 rig, not the Athlon XP. Heck, even converting DVD-5 with DD51 only takes about 3 to 4 hours complete...this crap 1/2 hour ASTRO show also takes that long??? Maybe the software sucks kua...gotta find another way to do it....

Just bought the splitter...wah-lau, my ASTRO decoder can barely handle all the stuff physically..almost cannot fit!!!...i already got and RF splitter at the back(2 TV's upstairs), S-VIDEO out is connected to TV, composite video out to PC, and now, 2 A/V splitter for left/right audio channels...

btw, my sound problem comes back. After changing the latency thingy, it's good for maybe 10 minutes and all the cracks and hiss comes back again....bah...

Maybe try to find other software to do it. Please update here if you found something good. I will try to find as well.

I notice cracks and hiss sound as well on my sound system. I'm using a yamaha RX-393 amp and yamaha speakers. Sound card is onboard card. The cracks and hiss sound only appear on certain downloaded TV shows. Music no problem. Maybe for mine is just the downloaded video is not encoded properly. This issue doesn't bother me that much.

okay, i found a solution to the conversion.

(1) Use DVRMSToolbox to convert dvr-ms to mpg file - very fast. Less than 1 minute.
Download here :- http://www.download.com/DVRMSToolbox/3640-...4-10444368.html

(2) Use the DIVX converter that comes with DIVX 6 and convert it to DIVX (just drag the file and drop it inside). Took about 1 hour+ to convert the 1/2 hour show...still extremely long time. Looks like short of getting real-time encoding of DIVX via some other software (provided the CPU can handle), this is not going to work pratically.
btw, anyone tried Beyond TV v4.x?? I tried to install but it doesn't seems to regconized the IR blaster? I don't know which option to select at the last part when it ask for the IR blaster...doesn't seems like an option there.

My sound problem still persist. It's weird, it's okay for about 5 to 10 minutes before it starts kicking in. The encoded files however have no problem when i play it elsewhere.

Think i need to change sound card to test.

This post has been edited by Matrix: Dec 5 2006, 06:41 PM

Looks like i've solved my sound problem (hopefully) now. Updated the ProdigyLT drivers from 1.06 to 1.17(which incidently not available at the Audiotrak website...only found it at some korean site via the Prodigy LT fan thread here in LYP...darn...i think audiotrak is korean company...but at least update the official English website-ler!!! WTF! Prodigy is a good sound card but crap drivers!!!)

Watched ASTRO for > 1 hour via MCE and still sounds good without the hiss, echo and crackle kicking in on my Yamaha receiver.

Matrix, congrat to you new acquisition.......

DVR-MS is just a wrapper which contains TAGs info to the regular Mpeg2 stream. Hence the conversion to mpag2 is fast.

DVRMSToolbox version 1.1.0.3 (with an additional download) supports direct dvr-ms to xvid or divx.

Thanks.

Tried BeyondTV last night, problem is, it won't regconized the IR Blaster hooked to the USB IR receiver. It seems only to work with the non-MCE version of the PVR-150 which has built in propriatery IR blaster.

I think i'll stick with Win MCE.

same with sageTV...... they don't support MCE remote/blaster natively.

Alternatively you may want to use 3rd party driver such as [MceIrApi for XPnonMCE] for MCE remote/blaster. then use Girder to work with BeyondTV/ SageTV.

Tested Beyond TV becoz i thougt it can encode DIVX in real-time. Unfortunately, there's only MPEG format. I think can't do DIVX in real-time..the "showsqueeze" option only encode it to DIVX after recording i think.

Anyway, i think there's not so much shows i want to keep. Next Season of "Lost" still not showing yet.

I discovered 1 good thing about MCE/Hauppage PVR-150. It can still record the movies in background while in suspended standby mode! The PC never wakes up fully but somehow the recording gets done. Save power, reduce heat and extend the life of my HTPC.