Jump to content

New to live tv...


pmac

Recommended Posts

Hey guys, I'm new to Live TV (I forgot I've had a tuner card sitting in a box for years, and just hooked it up a couple days ago lol). I've got it set up and working properly through WMC, and it seems to be working great so far. I just have a few questions I'm hoping someone could answer.

 

My tuner card is a Hauppage WinTV-HVR-1800

 

I've got coax running from the TV-OUT on my satellite receiver to the ANALOG IN on my tuner card, and an IR blaster to send commands to my satellite receiver. This seems to be the only way to watch satellite on this card, as it seems they are designed more for digital cable than satellite TV.

 

1.  For some reason I've got a slight "hissing" sound in the background, almost like the audio gain is set too high or something, and I can't seem to find much info on what it's from, or how to get rid of it.

 

2. Since I've got an SD stream playing on a 65" plasma, the quality is obviously lacking from the HD quality video I'm used to watching in MB3, is there a way to implement MadVr in WMC for LiveTV, or another program I could use that will allow me to use MadVr? (I can't wait for LiveTv to come to MBT :) )

 

3. It seems like the brightness is set way too high for the LiveTv, as well as colors looking washed out, and I can't find any way to customize these settings aside from on my TV itself, which I don't want to do, since I've had my TV calibrated properly. This is something else I'd like to be able to implement MadVr for.

 

Thanks,

 

Patrick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bump... 27 views and no one knows anything about LiveTV? This hissing noise is driving me crazy! lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer

Bump... 27 views and no one knows anything about LiveTV? This hissing noise is driving me crazy! lol

You have a pretty unique setup so I wouldn't be suprised by few replies.

 

1. How does your tv card receive sound from your STB? Thru the coax? Try a different coax cable, or remake the connector heads yourself and ensure your grounding screens are well away from the conductor core.

 

2. You cannot hook any decoding filters into live tv, thats a fact in win7, when i was beta testing win7 there was a time when i could use ffdshow with post processing and upscaling but that was stopped when it when to RC.

 

3. This is probably down to the coax cable.

 

Hope that helps you a little

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay thanks @@Cheesegeezer,

 

Yes, it's coax cable for the time being, I could try another cable to see if that makes a difference, but I plan on switching to RCA/S-video, since we don't have an HD receiver here anyway. I'm hoping that will make a difference with the sound issue at the least.

 

Too bad about the filters though, I wonder why they took the ability to use them out of the final release...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer

Okay thanks @@Cheesegeezer,

 

Too bad about the filters though, I wonder why they took the ability to use them out of the final release...

Me too!!!! I dont think they had finished implementing live tv before the RC release and thats why it went

 

As for your cable swapping, that would probably do it, and you may get a marginal PQ improvement with the svideo.

 

Anyways please report back your finding and results as it may help others in the future, especially once all our clients have adopted the live tv functionality :D

Edited by Cheesegeezer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

mguebert

For HD streams from your satellite receiver you can use Hauppauge HDPVR, that would be a better choice and it can also utilize SPDIF digital audio including dolby digital 5.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We don't watch the satellite often, so we only have an old, non-hd satellite receiver, so the HD PVR would be of no use to me until we decide to order HD channels. For now I'm just hoping to get the quality a little better on my TV Tuner card, as it still isn't as good quality as the video I get from having my STB plugged directly into the TV. But like we were discussing earlier, hopefully switching to RCA's and S-Video that will solve my brightness/hissing issue. Just haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AgileHumor

#1 - Try putting your STB volume to the highest setting possible using the satellite remote.  However, slight hissing is normal with analog conversion. 

 

#2 - No HD TV via sattelite.  You could get basic channels (CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, ABC, 1 or 2 others) via Antenna (ATSC) or via cable company (ClearQAM) for MB3 live TV.  Basic cable with only these channels runs under $20, but no CNN or Comedy Central (which you would need CableCard for encrypted signals).  You can also try an antenna with your current tuner, but you will get unreliable reception: http://www.antennaweb.org/ 

 

#3 - Problem with the analog conversion. It "softens" the picture. 

 

Frankly due to satellite not being a monopoly, they weren't forced to have a method to handoff an encrypted signals the signal like Cable companies had to via ATSC or Cable Card. 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, so I tried hooking my tuner card up with RCA's for the audio, and that fixed the "hissing" problem, BUT... In order to use the RCA audio input on my tuner I need to use S-Video for video. The only cable I have on hand is an RCA to 4-pin S-Video. When I go from the RCA video out on my STB to S-Video in on my tuner card the colors all look "blocky" and pixellated, with a bit of static streaking horizontally on the screen. I also tried a female RCA to S-Video adapter so I could go from the S-Video out on my STB to the S-Video in on my tuner, which resulted in the video coming through as black and white...

 

Any ideas? Would a 7-pin cable change anything? I may go out and buy one to try out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AgileHumor

Today, your more likely to see just HDMI and RCA (Component) outputs on newer STBs...smart and dumb with no S-Video or Composite in between.  

 

If your looking for the best 480i analog signal, I'd look at getting an older STB with a S-Video output.   I don't think you can knock up an RCA to S-Video that will lead to a quality improvement.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, my last post might not have been clear. My STB has S-Video out. I tried going from both the RCA out and the S-Video out of my STB, each with it's own issue described in my previous post. the only thing is, I don't currently have a proper S-Video cable, the only one I have right now is RCA to S-Video, so I tried going from the RCA out on my STB to S-Video in on my tuner card. I also tried going from the S-Video out on my STB by using an S-Video to RCA adapter to go on my RCA to S-Video cable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

trusselo

those 4 pin s-video cables are special cables for graphics and tuner cards, it is for video cards that have a special S-video port, that is designed to out put RCA video with this cable attached.

 

if you cut that cable apart, 2 pins are actually 1 jumper, the other 2 pins go to the tips of the RCA end. the 2 jumper pins should tell the card, "go to RCA mode". so that is why it wont work from your STB s-video to an adapter to computer SVideo.

 

the quality is getting further degraded due to another analog conversion from s-video to composite...

 

go to the dollar store and get an s-video cable.

Edited by trusselo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

trusselo

the 4 pin are special adapter cables for special video cards.

 

7 pin are standard s-video cables. that is what you need.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay thanks, I'll see if I can pick one up today and report back tomorrow, I don't think my significant other would appreciate me doing much tinkering today, as we're out for our anniversary right now lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the 4 pin are special adapter cables for special video cards.

 

7 pin are standard s-video cables. that is what you need.

I did some more research, and it seems you had the right idea, just the other way around.

7-pin S-Video cables are non-standard, and vary depending on the manufacturer and application. Apparently the luminance and chrominance pins can vary in their location, and sometimes extra pins would have to be removed for them to function properly.

 

So I bought a 4-Pin S-Video cable yesterday, just got it hooked up to my tuner card with RCA audio, and it's working great now! (Other than the fact that I broke my IR blaster cord the other day, and now I can't change channels on my HTPC, so I'm waiting for my new one to arrive in a few days)

 

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm glad I've finally got this working, and now it's actually better quality video than having the RCA's hooked up to my TV :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After researching a little bit about S-Video cables (I've used them before but didn't know anything about the different types), I think I've come to understand the main differences in types.

 

Here's a little diagram explaining the basic difference between 4-Pin and 7-Pin Cables:

 

52f1c9b5439aa_svideodiagram.jpg

 

The 4-Pin is the standard cable used in most cases, delivering 480i video, while the 7-Pin cable is used for delivering composite video.

 

These 7-Pin cables can vary by manufacturer, in that the composite ground can either be found on the #5 or #6 pin. I'm not sure why the manufacturers didn't make them all the same, but maybe that's why you don't see these cables often.

 

Another variation of the 4-Pin cable is the 4-Pin to RCA adapter. In this cable, the #1 and #2 pins go to the RCA Ground Shield, and the #3 and #4 pins go to the RCA Center Signal.

 

I believe the reason I was getting black and white video when using one of these adapters was because the adapter was combining the Chroma and Luma channels to be used for an RCA cable, and when I connected it to an RCA to 4-Pin cable to plug into my tuner card, the Chroma and Luma channels were still mixed, so the tuner couldn't properly decode it.

 

I've seen a little bit about other 7-Pin and 9-Pin RCA's that also carry audio, but I didn't read too much into them.

 

Hopefully this might help someone else that has the same issue I was having with hooking up my tuner properly, and it's always nice to know a little bit about why something works or doesn't work, and not just that it works or not.

 

Also, generally 4-Pin cables will work fine with 7-Pin inputs, but will only deliver 480i video, so if you want composite video through an S-Video cable you'll need a 7-Pin cable but you'll have to find out if the cable you are using is compatible with your manufacturers input, due to the possibility of the composite ground being on either the #5 or #6 pin.

Edited by pmac
Link to comment
Share on other sites

have you gotten your setup working?

Yes, it's working great now. Better quality than the component video I had hooked up straight to the A/V receiver before installing my tuner card as well. I just need to wait for my new IR blaster cable to come in, because it seems I broke it somehow when I was playing with wires behind the TV cabinet lol. So for now I need to use two remotes to watch TV on the computer, no big deal... I'm just glad it's finally working. Thanks for your help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...