Okay, step one of my project was getting a simple DVD jukebox up and running. Phase 2 is to use the PVR functionality of myth.

I have purchased a PVR-150 card from hauppage and I hope to be able to watch and record directv. The card is installed, but I can not get the picture to display.

I've tried straight from the dish (no box) and using the RF out from my directv receiver. No luck. As you've probably noticed, I'm no expert, so any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks again,

Paul

I'm pretty sure you'll need to use the box. Use the s-video out on the box, and an IR Blaster to change channels on it. Not really familiar with how to do it, I'm sure other people can point you towards more help.

The S-video does not contain audio. You will also need to run an audio line from the directv box.

I'm not sure how to input into the PVR-150, but if you can use composite cables, they would be better than S-video.

There may be a way to have MythTV change the channel of the directv box. It would be done either with a infra-red transmitter (blaster) or through fire-wire.

Here's a link to the MythTV wiki for the MCE remote/transmitter:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MCE_Remote

You cannot feed the satellite signal directly to your PVR-150. It only has an NTSC tuner, satellite signals are 8vsb and not NTSC. I have my DirecTV (D*) STB connected to the satellite dish (the normal connection) and have the STB connected to my PVR-250 via the S-Video and R/L stereo audio connections.

I don't bother with the tuning at all. I set the D* program guide to auto tune the channel I want to record and then activate the PVR to start the recording at the right time (so far I've always done it "live", since I'm usually awake at the time).

I haven't gotten it set up with Linux & MythTV yet, so I've been using Windows XP and the supplied WinTV 2000 for controlling my PVR-250.

NOTE: Paul, the composite cables will result in a slightly lower quality picture than S-Video. Neither, of course have sound - the L/R stereo still needs to be connected. The new DirecTV receivers do not have the RF connection (which is the other option).

Heres the Mythtv-Wiki entry for that card. It includes two links at the bottom to get the card all the way up in Mythtv in both debian and gentoo.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_PVR-150

Basicaly you will need to be sure you have the lates modules for the card and be sure to have the firmware available to load to the device.

Once the drivers are working fully you should be able to select the input either composite ( the yellow cable) or svideo (the round 9 pin cable) on the capture card screen. Either way you still need audio hooked up as well. I do not recomend using the coax out of your box to the coax input as the signal is modulated then de-modualted causing some signal degradation. If you do want to try it that way set the input to the tuner and set the channel to 3 or 4 dempending on what your box ouputs to.

Thanks again. I'll be working on this over the weekend, wish me luck.

Good Luck :D.

BTW, I added a comment to my previous post after you responded.

mastafunk -- As I added, the new DirecTV (the H20 series) STBs do not have an RF output, so that option doesn't exist. The DirecTV STB also allows for the tunng of OTA HD channels, which can be recorded (at SD resoluton) by the PVR-150 (if the S-Video or Composite connections are used). I still think the S-Video connection is the best choice.

NOTE: Paul, the composite cables will result in a slightly lower quality picture than S-Video. Neither, of course have sound - the L/R stereo still needs to be connected. The new DirecTV receivers do not have the RF connection (which is the other option).
I always thought that it was the other way around. :confused:

I guess that I DON'T know everything. (shhhh - don't tell anybody) ;)

I always thought that it was the other way around. :confused:

I guess that I DON'T know everything. (shhhh - don't tell anybody) ;)

Maybe you were getting composite confused with component... :)

Yippee! The PVR is setup and I can record. Thanks to everyone for their help. The next step is getting this all to display on my TV. Up to this point I've been using a monitor. Hopefully it goes smoothly.

My video card has s-video out, so the plan is to use that and connect it to my TV. We'll see if it's as easy as it should be.

Paul

I don't recall which video card you have. If it is a nVidia, with a s-video output, I have used that.

The video card will down-res the picture to the tv. I had to manually add some options to the xorg.conf file. Here's a sample of that, yours may be different:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "TV"
ModelName "Sony"
DisplaySize 320 240
###Comment - All HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 30.0 - 50.0
VertRefresh 60.0 - 60.0
# Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600/GeForce6600 GT]"
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV-0"
Option "TVOverscan" "1.5"
Option "NvAGP" "3"
Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

I don't recall where this came from. It does say Fedora Core 5 on it, but I may have gotten it off of the internet.

You really should read through the (very large) readme file that comes with the nVidia driver.

I spoke to soon. I guess the shows I recorded in my test just happened to be on the same channel the D* receiver was set on. When I schedule a recording the myth box can't change the channel on the receiver. So, I have to figure out how this will work.

My receiver doesn't have a serial port, but does have a usb port. From what I've read, it may be able to be used to control the box. Just when I thought I was getting close...

The good news, the movie juke box still works. However, the IMBD information has to be entered manually for everything. Maybe I'm doing the search wrong, but it never finds anything.