[mythtv-users][OT] - How grab VHS tapes?

David Watkins watkinshome at gmail.com
Wed Dec 7 11:09:54 EST 2005


On 07 Dec 2005 06:29:13 -0800, Jim Reith <reith at racores.com> wrote:
> At 09:05 AM 12/7/2005, you wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Alessandro Boggiano <boggiano at libero.it> wrote:
> Hi all,
> usually if I want watch a VHS,I can use the antenna cable between the
> vcr and the tv (I know,the quality is bad),put channel 36 on my tv and
> it works!
>
> I'd like to do the same thing with my mythtv system in order to recorder
> the vhs tape: so I unplegged the antenna from the tv and plugged the vcr
> as above.
>
>
> Should work. I've done this with my VCR, setting myth to channel 3 in my
> case.
> Not sure what VCR picks channel 36 - does the VCR have a switch on the back
> to
> select which channel to use? (I think mine has a 3/4 switch).
> Since it's an Italy email address, it's probably all PAL
>
>
> Now the problem is that I can't find a valid channel/frequency with my
> PVR-150: I use ivtv-0.4.0 and the program ptune-ui.pl (I hacked the
> source to have a fine tune to 50) to set the channel.
> But I can'f find a valid frequency!
>
>
> I think you can use ivtvctl to manually pick an actual frequency, but I'm
> surprised that ptune
> didn't work without being hacked. Do you normally use the cable input on the
> PVR, or the
> composite/svideo? If you don't normally use the tuner, is it possible that
> you have it set to the
> wrong country frequency sets? (I am guessing that you aren't in the US based
> on the channel-36-VCR,
> since I've never heard of such a thing over here - VHF here only goes 2-13,
> and if you are cable-ready,
> chances are you don't need to use RF modulation on the antenna input)
>
> For a couple of secs I had a valid picture from the tape,but it disappared!
>
>
> Keep in mind that that myth has a large delay, so if you are trying things
> on the VCR, they take a long
> time to show up on the screen (same with tuning channels on the PVR - when
> you change the channel,
> it has to propogate through the card AND through the ring-buffer.
> Might be better to use the component or S-video inputs if possible

I'd agree that that the S-Video output would be better, but if it's
not available then you're stuck with composite.

I ended up putting my PVR 350 into a windows machine and using the
windows software that came with the card to do a channel scan.  Then,
the channel number that it found the VCR on goes into the frequency
field on the second page of the mythtv channel setup.


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