Tv Tuner card hell

K

Kasyx

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Recently I installed a TV tuner card in my pc - Winfast tv2000 Expert. I've managed to finally get everything up and running. There is, however, one major issue. The software that ships with it - WinPVR - is an abomination one would not wish upon one's worst enemy.

I run a dual-monitor display, so naturally I would like to be able to shunt my TV viewer between the two monitors. Try doing this with WinPVR and it crashes so hard you have to restart your computer. What I need to know is what decent TV-viewing software is out there? I have tried various open source options (media portal, Got All Media, etc.), none of which seem to work (media portal complains about some stupid graph thing - anyone know why?). In fact, the only software that does work is WinPVR, though not very well...

So the big question is: what other software is out there for me to use? I just want to watch TV on my computer, is that too much to ask? :(

tl;dr - WinPVR sucks, media portal doesn't work. What do I use?
 
rorz0r

rorz0r

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I can't say I've found anything better... They all seem to suck.
 
T

TiredOfWaiting

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Check out K!TV.

My tuner card died a year or so ago, but that program kicked ass.

I see the project is still alive, so it no doubt still does. :cool:
 
F

Flipside

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I'm currently struggling with the same "unable to create graph" error in mediaportal. The problem appears to be in the CaptureCardDefinitions.xml file.

Have you checked out www.tv-cards.com ?

There's also a newer version of leadteks pvr software (pvr2) available, is this what you're using?
 
adsl3g

adsl3g

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Kasyx said:
Recently I installed a TV tuner card in my pc - Winfast tv2000 Expert. I've managed to finally get everything up and running. There is, however, one major issue. The software that ships with it - WinPVR - is an abomination one would not wish upon one's worst enemy.

I run a dual-monitor display, so naturally I would like to be able to shunt my TV viewer between the two monitors. Try doing this with WinPVR and it crashes so hard you have to restart your computer. What I need to know is what decent TV-viewing software is out there? I have tried various open source options (media portal, Got All Media, etc.), none of which seem to work (media portal complains about some stupid graph thing - anyone know why?). In fact, the only software that does work is WinPVR, though not very well...

So the big question is: what other software is out there for me to use? I just want to watch TV on my computer, is that too much to ask? :(

tl;dr - WinPVR sucks, media portal doesn't work. What do I use?
Click to expand...

Are you using Vista - I have the same card and IT DOES NOT WORK in Vista - some people claim they have it working but I have never had any luck - I think it has a problem with the Sigmatel audio drivers in Vista.
 
F

Fudzy

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Yeah, getting TV tuners seem to be a black art. You should try XP MCE, it requires registry edits to fine tune.
 
K

Kasyx

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Thanks for all the help. I'm not using Vista (thank God), I'm running XP SP2.

I have just installed K!TV and it is PERFECT, it is exactly what I needed, thank you, TiredOfWaiting! Anyone else hating winPVR, switch to K!TV, it is pious.

Also, does anyone know what the remote is one gets with the tv2000 Expert? I would like to try get it to work on K!TV, but it is unlikely I will. Oh well, can't have everything...
 
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A

abuusamah

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hi

i just installed ktv but when i run it it gives the error: No overlay detected
please help. i am using a gigabyte tv card
 
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milomak

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My XP always seems to have issues about how it decides to handle the audio when using WinFast PVR. A real abomination of a program. When Vista first came out I gave up on trying to get the sound working on it. And strangely it would change the resolution when I started running WinFast PVR. I presume that they have since fixed such issues.

Strange how programs like TVTime and xdTV on Linux have given me no problems with the card.
 
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Kasyx

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abuusamah said:
hi

i just installed ktv but when i run it it gives the error: No overlay detected
please help. i am using a gigabyte tv card
Click to expand...

I get that sometimes. It looks like it is due to another media player application hogging your overlay. Try do a restart and see if that fixes it.
 
Kloon

Kloon

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adsl3g said:
Are you using Vista - I have the same card and IT DOES NOT WORK in Vista - some people claim they have it working but I have never had any luck - I think it has a problem with the Sigmatel audio drivers in Vista.
Click to expand...

There is a registry trick you can do to enable extra vista drivers which include the winfast card driver for vista.
 
A

abuusamah

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Kasyx said:
I get that sometimes. It looks like it is due to another media player application hogging your overlay. Try do a restart and see if that fixes it.
Click to expand...

I tried that. Still didnt work. I have the disk that came with the card. It has Power Cinema 4.7 on it -that used to work well but I lost the envelope cover that had the serial number on it.
 
d0b33

d0b33

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I bought a cheap compro and hate the software that comes with it and it wont work with anything else so I bought myself a proper tv tuner (hauppauge pvr-150 for MCE) and it will work with Vista media center and I think media-portal, bought a Microsoft MCE remote too.
 
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d0b33

d0b33

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TiredOfWaiting said:
Check out K!TV.

My tuner card died a year or so ago, but that program kicked ass.

I see the project is still alive, so it no doubt still does. :cool:
Click to expand...

I'll try this out thanks.

Has anyone tried tvplugin with winamp?
http://www.tv-plugin.com/

It works with my cheap card but I cant record unfortunately.

I also used VLC as a TV tuner before.
 
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d0b33

d0b33

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abuusamah said:
How did you use VLC as a tuner?
I've tried many programs now - but they wont work. I get an error about the Overlay in some.
Click to expand...

What I do is File>open capture device> refresh list and select my tuner card>ok

This will stream the current channel that my tuner card software has set, to change channels I made a VLC Playlist with the channels numbers manually set but I forgot how to do it now since the latest VLC handled the playlist differently.

I use the winamp tv plugin rather to stream video now.
 
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