Hi there,

sorry for nagging, I searched the forum for quite some time but did not find sufficient information on how to setup the MythBox in order to record from an analogue VCR attached to my analogue Medion TV-card.
No idea yet, what input to chose: I have available the "standard" COAX, as well as VIDEO and COMPOSITE; however, for the latter two there will be a need for some adapter, I suppose...

The idea is to just "digitize" all my VHS-videos by configuring MythTV to read them from the already defined Videosource "VCR"...
However, I have no idea how to manually set up a channel in the database for that issue. I do have DVB-S up and running, and I am afraid that I'll need to do some phpmyadmin-work to get a "dummy" channel inserted to mythconverg that I can move to to start the recording, right?

Any hints?

Thanks


MIG

_________________
KnoppMyth R5E50
3 x SkyStar2
1 x Pinnacle PCTV 400e USB
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (MBE)
nVidia GeForce 7100 GS (FE)

Have you tried running mythtv-setup and going into the channel editor? I have not done this, but I'm almost certain you should be able to add a channel. At least in the R5B7 release.

mike

_________________
KnoppMyth R5B7
Asus P4P800-VM
P4 2.4 Ghz - 1GB RAM
PVR-150 - HD-5000
Geforce FX 5200

My card is set to channel 3 (you can use 4 too I think). My setup has the Coax going from my sat dish receiver to the VCR and then the VCR going into my capture card.
You can do as described, just setup a new channel, 3 (or 4) and change to that channel on the card and just hit play on the vcr.

_________________
ASUS A7N266 Micro-ATX Motherboard
Athlon 2200 processor
512K Kingston PC2100 Memory
MicroAtx Case
2 PVR250's w/remote
eVGA e-GeForce mx4000 (64 Ram with Tv/Out (Svideo))
Lite-on DVD cd-rw combo
120 GB Western Digital

If your VCR has an S-Video or Composite output I'd use that instead. Everytime you reencode the signal on a new carrier it's going to degrade, and VCR recordings are relatively crappy to start with.

Thanks for your help so far...

However, there are still some open issues that I have no clue how to address them:
Let's assume I am using the SVIDEO connection that both my VCR and my TV-Card are capable to use. Do I need to add a channel to the database and if so, how do I do it ? The channel editor requires input of information like freqeuncy id that IMHO are essential but not really appropriate for SVIDEO input...
Moreover, when setting up the Video Source (I named it VCR), I was asked for EPG-related stuff, which of course and apparently is not available for my VCR. As a result, I also cannot run mythfilldatabase for that SVIDEO input...

I am a little bit confused, but maybe I just misunderstood something.
That's what I thought so far:
- There must be present a tuner definition for my TV-card (-> V4Linux)... Done
- There must be a Video source defined, which is apparently different to the DVB-S stuff I use for my "real" TV-cards... Done by defining "VCR"
- There must be a link between "VCR" and (at least) one of the Input connectors of my TV-Card... Done by assigning "VCR" to the COMPOSITE and the SVIDEO connector (not yet finally sure which one will be used)
- There must be at least one channel defined for the "VCR" video source so Myth can tune that channel? Not quite sure about that...
- There is no need for any XMLTV related stuff... but how do I switch it off for "VCR"?

I do not see major issues in manually updating mythconverg, however, I have no clue what to update/insert there...

_________________
KnoppMyth R5E50
3 x SkyStar2
1 x Pinnacle PCTV 400e USB
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (MBE)
nVidia GeForce 7100 GS (FE)

All myth needs to do when switching to your VCR channel is to select the tuner input that it to recording (i.e the svideo or the composite). In the past, I have gotten around the frequency/channel change issue by specifying /bin/true as the channel change script (this is a little application that returns a success status so that mythtv thinks it has changed the channel). Think about it. What you are doing is similar to people that have settop boxes that they record off. The tuner card doesnt need to know about the channel.

I dont know about the XMLTV stuff and am hoping that someone can answer that one for you. There doesnt seem to be a "none" option when specifying the grabber for a source.

I do not think it is that easy, since I also have my DVB-S running in parallel... I need to be able to actually switch channels; however, I do NOT need switching when recording from the VCR...

_________________
KnoppMyth R5E50
3 x SkyStar2
1 x Pinnacle PCTV 400e USB
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (MBE)
nVidia GeForce 7100 GS (FE)

You can specify an external channel change per input connection. If you are using svideo for dvbs and composite for your video, just put /bin/true in the composite input connection. If you are using the same input and manually connecting the right source, then just set up a manual recording on one of your dvb-s channels and it will record from your video.

Hi Greg,

looks like you put me on the right track... Thanks!
I decided to use COMPOSITE rather than SVIDEO, since the latter again produced nice b/w video...
There was no real need to define a channel, since switching the inputs using the "Y"-key ended up in a nice and clear color video w/o any additional action required.
Well, when after attaching the cabling, I realized that something is missing: COMPOSITE only transmits the video signal (which btw works fine) and audio needs separate handling. Ok, I do have available the signal but I do not know where to actually "route" it.
Unfortunately, my TV-card has no audio-in and when plugging into the audio-in of my onboard-sound, I (as expected) get the audio out of synch with the video. I need to "convince" the box to re-route the audio signals through MythTV to get proper synchronization, but I have no idea how to do that trick.

I'd appreciate any further support. I browsed the forum and read a lot about PVR-synch issues and the like... which was not helpful due to above mentioned issues.

_________________
KnoppMyth R5E50
3 x SkyStar2
1 x Pinnacle PCTV 400e USB
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (MBE)
nVidia GeForce 7100 GS (FE)

I think you need to mute the line-in from the audio card. Myth should synchronise the recording properly but if the line in is not myted you hear it as myth is recording it rather than when myth is playing it back. When in live-tv mode, there is probably a 2-4 second difference between what is being recorded and what is playing back.

Thanks Greg...

However, after muting the line-in (I did it using aumix), there is no sound at all. Am I missing a point? I recall from earlier attempts to get Myth running (with that analogue TV-Card only and no DVB-S) that there was an issue with muting line-in, but I do not recall what I did. At least, the video is brilliant and the sound offset is approx 1 sec. but only if it's "real" LiveTV. It is not provided by Myth since skipping back 30 seconds only affects the video.

Do I have to tell Myth where to get the sound input when chosing the "Composite" tuner, or does it just record all possible inputs? If I have to setup things, please let me know, where to adjust things... I am so close!

Edit: I MADE IT! After fiddling around with the aumix input and output channels, I suddenly heard the famous "Myth-Echo", i.e. original audio overlayed with Myth-processed audio, and was in turn able to mute the inappropriate line yielding in synchronous audio for my video input. That's all for this issue, folks. Thanks again, Greg...

_________________
KnoppMyth R5E50
3 x SkyStar2
1 x Pinnacle PCTV 400e USB
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (MBE)
nVidia GeForce 7100 GS (FE)