Talk:Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q: Difference between revisions
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=User |
=User Experience= |
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== Overal Impression == |
== Overal Impression == |
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This is my first video capture device and I really like it. It currently works great/excellent for ATSC (digital broadcast) but |
This is my first video capture device and I really like it. It currently works great/excellent for ATSC (digital broadcast) but not so well for NTSC (analog TV/cable). I use WinTV-HVR-950Q on very modest hardware: on an old Dell Latitude D600 laptop with 2GHz/500MB connected to a 1080p LCD TV through a VGA cable. Both my TV and the WinTV are connected to an internal amplified antenna (TERK HDTVa). I have connected my satelite tv box to the composite input of WinTV, so that I can get HDTV and satelite TV at the same time without an external switch. |
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This WinTV tuner is as good as my TV tuner: both found the same channels and have about the same video quality (even for 1080i broadcasts). |
This WinTV tuner is as good as my TV tuner: both found the same channels and have about the same video quality (even for 1080i broadcasts). (Note: the device has no impact upon digital video quality -- this dependent upon other factors like video decoder, rendering method, video drivers etc) |
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Note that it's |
Note that it's crucial to have a fast video card. My card, ATI Radeon 9000 32Mb, is not supported by ATI anymore, so I had to use the open source radeon driver instead of ATI's fglrx. If you use the default settings for the radeon driver, you will get a pitiful 170FPS in glxgears, which is ''NOT'' sufficient for watching digital TV. But after I used this xorg.conf file[http://lambda.uta.edu/d600/xorg2.conf], I got about 1100FPS, which was sufficient. Of course, I had to do the following to get the best resolution on my TV (and a blank screen on my laptop): |
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<pre> |
<pre> |
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xrandr --output LVDS --off --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080 |
xrandr --output LVDS --off --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080 |
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because of my slow video and audio cards. |
because of my slow video and audio cards. |
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To watch an analog NTSC channel (US broadcast) without sound, say channel 3, use |
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== TV Recording == |
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Instead of using special software for TIVO-like recording (such as MythTV), I use simple scripts. I first created a file in my bin directory, called favorites.txt, with mnemonics for my favorite channels listed in channels.conf (these are actual their channel numbers). Example: |
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<pre> |
<pre> |
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mplayer tv://3 |
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4 KDFW DT |
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5 KXAS-HD |
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11 KTVT-DT |
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13 KERA-HD |
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</pre> |
</pre> |
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You can also capture video from the composite or the S-video input. Simply use <tt>mplayer tv:///1</tt> for composite or <tt>mplayer tv:///2</tt> for S-video. They give far better image than the antenna input. I used the directions on the mplayer page [http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/MPlayer] to get sound for analog channels, but the sound is not synchronized with the video. |
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and use the following script, called tape, in my bin directory: |
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<p> |
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Update 5/20/2010: I finally fixed the analog video/audio synchronization problem: I had to increase the video buffer to 30MB. For example, to watch analog video from the |
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composite input (input=1), I use: |
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<pre> |
<pre> |
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mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:input=1:forceaudio:alsa=1:adevice=hw.1:audiorate=32000:volume=100:immediatemode=0:amode=1:buffersize=30 tv:// |
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#!/bin/sh |
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ext=`date +'%m-%d-%H-%M-%S'` |
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tapeit='/tmp/tapeit-'${ext} |
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stopit='/tmp/stopit' |
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file='~/Videos/'${ext}'-'$1 |
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pat='s/^'$1' //p;d' |
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chan=`sed "${pat}" ~/bin/favorites.txt` |
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if [ "${chan}" == "" ]; then echo "Valid channels:"; cat ~/bin/favorites.txt; exit; fi |
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echo "azap -r -c ~/channels.conf '${chan}' > /dev/null & cat /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 > ${file}" > ${tapeit} |
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echo 'killall -q azap cat' > ${stopit} |
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if [ "$2" = "now" ]; then sh ${tapeit}; else at -f ${tapeit} $2; fi |
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if [ -z "$3" ]; then at -f ${stopit} now + 1 hour; else at -f ${stopit} $3; fi |
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</pre> |
</pre> |
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To record the analog input from the composite input, do: |
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For example, to tape something on KDFW-DT (channel 4) between 5pm and 6pm you execute: |
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<pre> |
<pre> |
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mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=30000/1001:audiorate=32000:adevice=hw.1:alsa:input=1:amode=1:normid=4 \ |
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tape 4 5pm 6pm |
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-ffourcc DIVX -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=1024 -lavcopts vbitrate=1800 \ |
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-endpos ${duration} -o ${file} tv:// > /dev/null 2> /dev/null |
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(note that for a 1080i channel, you will need 6GB/hour disk space). The result will be written in the directory Video under a name that contains date/time/channel. Then you can use mplayer to watch this file. |
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where <tt>${duration}</tt> is the recording duration in seconds (eg, 1:00:00 for an hour) and <tt>${file}</tt> is the output file name. |
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== AV adapter == |
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Could someone with an AV adapter please describe the pinout? I have an HVR-850, which has the port, but doesn't come with a cable, and $18 + shipping is a bit much for something this simple. (I just need the RCA connectors, not the S-Video.) Thanks in advance. :) — [[User:SheeEttin|SheeEttin]] {[[User_talk:SheeEttin|T]]/[[Special:Contributions/SheeEttin|C]]} 22:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC) |
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response by djh - If you're going to buy the micro-usb connector, it should be trivial to figure out which pin the CVBS comes in on. It's then one that shows a TV picture in tvtime when you apply a video signal to it! Just hook up a VCR and iterate through the pins until you see a picture show up. |
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Latest revision as of 18:21, 20 May 2010
User Experience
Overal Impression
This is my first video capture device and I really like it. It currently works great/excellent for ATSC (digital broadcast) but not so well for NTSC (analog TV/cable). I use WinTV-HVR-950Q on very modest hardware: on an old Dell Latitude D600 laptop with 2GHz/500MB connected to a 1080p LCD TV through a VGA cable. Both my TV and the WinTV are connected to an internal amplified antenna (TERK HDTVa). I have connected my satelite tv box to the composite input of WinTV, so that I can get HDTV and satelite TV at the same time without an external switch. This WinTV tuner is as good as my TV tuner: both found the same channels and have about the same video quality (even for 1080i broadcasts). (Note: the device has no impact upon digital video quality -- this dependent upon other factors like video decoder, rendering method, video drivers etc)
Note that it's crucial to have a fast video card. My card, ATI Radeon 9000 32Mb, is not supported by ATI anymore, so I had to use the open source radeon driver instead of ATI's fglrx. If you use the default settings for the radeon driver, you will get a pitiful 170FPS in glxgears, which is NOT sufficient for watching digital TV. But after I used this xorg.conf file[1], I got about 1100FPS, which was sufficient. Of course, I had to do the following to get the best resolution on my TV (and a blank screen on my laptop):
xrandr --output LVDS --off --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080
Basic Installation
Connect the WinTV to a good antenna. Then download some tools (using your distribution installer: yum, apt-get, etc):
yum install dvb-apps mplayer
Then scan your ATSC channels. For example, to scan ATSC channels in US do
scandvb /usr/share/dvb-apps/atsc/us-ATSC-center-frequencies-8VSB > channels.conf
Then copy the file channels.conf to the directory .mplayer/ and test it on of one of the channels listed in channels.conf. For example, if you have a channel called KERA-HD, you do:
mplayer dvb://'KERA-HD'
In my case, for a 1080i broadcast, I had to use the following parameters:
mplayer dvb://'KERA-HD' -vo x11 -framedrop 1
because of my slow video and audio cards.
To watch an analog NTSC channel (US broadcast) without sound, say channel 3, use
mplayer tv://3
You can also capture video from the composite or the S-video input. Simply use mplayer tv:///1 for composite or mplayer tv:///2 for S-video. They give far better image than the antenna input. I used the directions on the mplayer page [2] to get sound for analog channels, but the sound is not synchronized with the video.
Update 5/20/2010: I finally fixed the analog video/audio synchronization problem: I had to increase the video buffer to 30MB. For example, to watch analog video from the composite input (input=1), I use:
mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:input=1:forceaudio:alsa=1:adevice=hw.1:audiorate=32000:volume=100:immediatemode=0:amode=1:buffersize=30 tv://
To record the analog input from the composite input, do:
mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=30000/1001:audiorate=32000:adevice=hw.1:alsa:input=1:amode=1:normid=4 \
-ffourcc DIVX -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=1024 -lavcopts vbitrate=1800 \
-endpos ${duration} -o ${file} tv:// > /dev/null 2> /dev/null
where ${duration} is the recording duration in seconds (eg, 1:00:00 for an hour) and ${file} is the output file name.
AV adapter
Could someone with an AV adapter please describe the pinout? I have an HVR-850, which has the port, but doesn't come with a cable, and $18 + shipping is a bit much for something this simple. (I just need the RCA connectors, not the S-Video.) Thanks in advance. :) — SheeEttin {T/C} 22:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
response by djh - If you're going to buy the micro-usb connector, it should be trivial to figure out which pin the CVBS comes in on. It's then one that shows a TV picture in tvtime when you apply a video signal to it! Just hook up a VCR and iterate through the pins until you see a picture show up.