PCI card issues - resolve? or new card reccomendatins?

I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE & SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a good
one which would fit my usage criteria?

Thanks
David

In message , Lobster
writes
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to
record movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western
Digital Live media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files
are a bit flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record
to HD at ~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV
player, but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows
Media Player or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format"
and "DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no
avail. Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE &
SSE2, whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a
good one which would fit my usage criteria?

Thanks
David

I have the same card, but haven't used it for years.

However, I have downloaded the latest drivers just in case.

The latest are version 4.0.0.

Are you using the standard drivers, or WDM drivers?

I have the standard 64bit, and 32 and 64bit WDM drivers,
which I can send you if you can't find them.
--
Ian

On Mar 16, 7:47*am, Lobster wrote:
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE & SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a good
one which would fit my usage criteria?h

Thanks
David

I had similar issues playing back files recorded by a DVB-T USB
'dongle' using WMP; I found that opening and then re-saving the files
using VideoRedo cured the problem, it removed various bad frames /
snych. errors from the file.

Whilst the program isn't free you can at least try a fully functional
version of videoredo plus for 14 days free IIRC.

http://www.videoredo.com/en/Download.htm

On 16/03/2011 13:43, Ian wrote:
In message , Lobster
writes
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to
record movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western
Digital Live media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files
are a bit flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record
to HD at ~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own
DigiTV player, but the files are unstable if I play them on either
Windows Media Player or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays
almost anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do
anything other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it
crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software
(DigiTV-HD v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original
Broadcast Format" and "DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried
both of these to no avail. Under 'About' it states "Hardware
acceleration used: MMX, SSE & SSE2, whatever that means (but they
apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how
and what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a
good one which would fit my usage criteria?


I have the same card, but haven't used it for years.

However, I have downloaded the latest drivers just in case.

The latest are version 4.0.0.

Are you using the standard drivers, or WDM drivers?

I have the standard 64bit, and 32 and 64bit WDM drivers,
which I can send you if you can't find them.

Hmm - I'm on 3.7.0.6. Just logged on to the Nebula website and found
32-bit WDM drivers, v4.0 which I've grabbed to try - never heard of
"WDM" before so don't know what I have currently. What's the
significance of "WDM" vs "standard" drivers?

Curious - when I last looked, quite a long time ago, ISTR Nebula had
gone bust or something, or at least stopped supporting my card? Could
be wrong. I notice the 4.0 download package is only 36kb, versus 14Mb
for my old 3.7.0.6 which I have saved - presumably that includes the
whole digititv app.

Anyway, sounds worth an easy try, thanks...

David

On 16/03/2011 08:23, Mike Henry wrote:
, Lobster
wrote:

I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE& SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

I think it's crashing because the mpg doesn't contain enough of the
trick-play timings for it to do RW and FF. This is why PVR manufacturers
tend to use their own format for the recordings (Toppy uses REC files,
TiVo uses TY files etc - both playable natively by the excellent VLC).

Sounds plausible! Your diagnosis sounds the most likely as the files
don't appear to be corrupt/faulty in that they all "play" absolutely
fine, it's just the fast-forward/rewind thing that is the problem.

So one thing to try is just go one more step - make a VOB file from your
.mpg and see how well that streams using your current software.

Will give that a whirl - will need to figure out how to do that first.
Are VOB files not pretty huge amd unwieldy in practice, if they are what
DVDs use?

From what others have suggested it sounds like a trial of VideoRedo
would also be worthwhile - I take it that wouldn't help with 'lack of
trick-play timings' if that's what my problem is?

Thanks
David


Or, switch to VideoLan client/server for your streaming instead using less
capable software like Windows Media Player, and see if that solves it
instead. If it does it would save you having to convert files.

TBH, WMP is a bit of a red herring as I don't use that normally; it's
the WD Live player which my files needs to work reliably on

In message , Lobster
writes
On 16/03/2011 13:43, Ian wrote:
In message , Lobster
writes
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to
record movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western
Digital Live media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files
are a bit flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record
to HD at ~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own
DigiTV player, but the files are unstable if I play them on either
Windows Media Player or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays
almost anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do
anything other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it
crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software
(DigiTV-HD v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original
Broadcast Format" and "DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried
both of these to no avail. Under 'About' it states "Hardware
acceleration used: MMX, SSE & SSE2, whatever that means (but they
apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how
and what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a
good one which would fit my usage criteria?


I have the same card, but haven't used it for years.

However, I have downloaded the latest drivers just in case.

The latest are version 4.0.0.

Are you using the standard drivers, or WDM drivers?

I have the standard 64bit, and 32 and 64bit WDM drivers,
which I can send you if you can't find them.

Hmm - I'm on 3.7.0.6. Just logged on to the Nebula website and found
32-bit WDM drivers, v4.0 which I've grabbed to try - never heard of
"WDM" before so don't know what I have currently. What's the
significance of "WDM" vs "standard" drivers?

Curious - when I last looked, quite a long time ago, ISTR Nebula had
gone bust or something, or at least stopped supporting my card? Could
be wrong. I notice the 4.0 download package is only 36kb, versus 14Mb
for my old 3.7.0.6 which I have saved - presumably that includes the
whole digititv app.

Anyway, sounds worth an easy try, thanks...

David

The WDM drivers were for those wishing to use the card with Windows
Media Centre for streaming, which was why I mentioned them.

As far as the download file size goes, it's likely they're just the
device drivers, and not the software.

I think it was the standard way to upgrade, unless there was a new
software version.

I used to use the "DVD Authoring" method, as I would put the files on a
DVDRW to watch on my TV, but now I have a video card with HDMI out
straight to the TV, so if I was using the Nebula card, it would be easy.
--
Ian

On Mar 17, 8:16*am, Lobster wrote:


*From what others have suggested it sounds like a trial of VideoRedo
would also be worthwhile - I take it that wouldn't help with 'lack of
trick-play timings' if that's what my problem is?

Thanks
David

I found that if I tried playing back stored TV files using WMP then
strisght playback was OK, but trying to skip to a different part of
the file, or sometimes just FF, would result in several seconds
glitching or WMP hanging. If I opened the file in VideoReDo then saved
it (as MPG IIRC), then I could use the skip and FF functions in WMP
without glitching.

On 16/03/2011 14:00, airsmoothed wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:47 am, wrote:
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE& SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a good
one which would fit my usage criteria?h

I had similar issues playing back files recorded by a DVB-T USB
'dongle' using WMP; I found that opening and then re-saving the files
using VideoRedo cured the problem, it removed various bad frames /
snych. errors from the file.

Whilst the program isn't free you can at least try a fully functional
version of videoredo plus for 14 days free IIRC.

http://www.videoredo.com/en/Download.htm

Well many thanks for the tip - videredo sorts out the problem like a
dream - extraordinary really...

My only slight issue with it is that it will cost me £30+ to obtain the
paid-for version, whereas I could spend half that on buying an
up-to-date new (albeit low-end) TV card which (hopefully?) should record
satisfactory MPG files anyway... thoughts?

David

On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:04:16 +0000, Lobster
wrote:

On 16/03/2011 14:00, airsmoothed wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:47 am, wrote:
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE& SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a good
one which would fit my usage criteria?h

I had similar issues playing back files recorded by a DVB-T USB
'dongle' using WMP; I found that opening and then re-saving the files
using VideoRedo cured the problem, it removed various bad frames /
snych. errors from the file.

Whilst the program isn't free you can at least try a fully functional
version of videoredo plus for 14 days free IIRC.

http://www.videoredo.com/en/Download.htm

Well many thanks for the tip - videredo sorts out the problem like a
dream - extraordinary really...

My only slight issue with it is that it will cost me £30+ to obtain the
paid-for version, whereas I could spend half that on buying an
up-to-date new (albeit low-end) TV card which (hopefully?) should record
satisfactory MPG files anyway... thoughts?

Something to consider is that VideoReDo has many more functions that
just cleaning up technical oddities in a recording.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

On 21/03/2011 14:00, Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:04:16 +0000, Lobster
wrote:

On 16/03/2011 14:00, airsmoothed wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:47 am, wrote:
I have an old Nebula DigiTV PCI card in my PC, and am using it to record
movies etc to my HD, and then streaming these to a Western Digital Live
media player. The problem is that the DigiTV output files are a bit
flakey; they are .mpg (no more info available); they record to HD at
~1Gb/hour. I can play them back fine using Nebula's own DigiTV player,
but the files are unstable if I play them on either Windows Media Player
or the WD Live player.

The main issue is the WD Live machine - it's brilliant and plays almost
anything I throw at it, including these .mpgs; however if I do anything
other than 'play' the files (ie fast forward, rewind) it crashes.

The only relevant settings I can find in the DigiTV software (DigiTV-HD
v3.7.06) is the option to switch between "Original Broadcast Format" and
"DVD authoring tool compatible" - have tried both of these to no avail.
Under 'About' it states "Hardware acceleration used: MMX, SSE& SSE2,
whatever that means (but they apparently can't be changed?)

Any suggestions? I'm wondering whether it's possible to convert the
output of the TV card into something more 'friendly' but if so, how and
what?

Failing that - if I need to update my PCI card can anyone suggest a good
one which would fit my usage criteria?h

I had similar issues playing back files recorded by a DVB-T USB
'dongle' using WMP; I found that opening and then re-saving the files
using VideoRedo cured the problem, it removed various bad frames /
snych. errors from the file.

Whilst the program isn't free you can at least try a fully functional
version of videoredo plus for 14 days free IIRC.

http://www.videoredo.com/en/Download.htm

Well many thanks for the tip - videredo sorts out the problem like a
dream - extraordinary really...

My only slight issue with it is that it will cost me £30+ to obtain the
paid-for version, whereas I could spend half that on buying an
up-to-date new (albeit low-end) TV card which (hopefully?) should record
satisfactory MPG files anyway... thoughts?

Something to consider is that VideoReDo has many more functions that
just cleaning up technical oddities in a recording.

True...! Eg I noticed a facilty called 'ad-detective' which puports to
be able to automatically strip out commercial breaks, which would be
great I admit; though on my initial stab at using it, this failed
miserably! I expect it would benefit from some tweaking of its default
detection settings...

David