[mythtv-users] PVR-350 - PAL-I Variant, for use in Ireland?

[Lorcan Hamill]

Marc Mosthav wrote:
> AFAIK the only difference between B/G and I is the audio part, so if your
> NTL thing has composite out (for example via SCART) and ypu can feed the
> audio in through that you shoulld be able to capture likt this.

Thanks for the reply, Marc.

My "NTL thing" is just a box on the wall with two coax connectors, one
for analogue TV and one for FM radio. No settop box, smartcards or any
of that new-fangled stufff. It's a fairly old cable network in
Dublin, which NTL acquired when they bought a local operator called
Cabelink some years back.  Just to add to the oddness of it all, the
cable service uses VHF (or is it UHF?  I can never remember...)
Anyway, it's the one that *isn't* used for over-the-air broadcasting
in the UK or Ireland.  Lots of people (me included) move back from
the UK and bring their TV with them, only to discover that it won't
work on the Dublin network without an external frequency-shifting box.
TVs sold in Ireland are equipped for both UHF and VHF because of this,
it seems.

But I digress...

 > The I version is available in the UK. I bought mine from 
http://www.simply.co.uk.

Hmm... that would make sense according to the list of broadcast
standards (linked in my original mail), since it says PAL-I is
used on UHF in the UK, and PAL-B on VHF. (Though that seems to
contradict what I said above, but who's counting? :)

But at the simply.co.uk site, I can only find one version of the
PVR-350, and it says PAL-B/G.  Did you have to phone them to request
the PAL-I version?

At this stage, I'm almost afraid to buy another version until I
know that someone has it working in Dublin - preferably on
my street! So, are there any Dubs out there with a working 350? :)

Thanks again for the info, Marc.

Lorcan

> 
> Hope this helps,
> Marc
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
>>From: "Lorcan Hamill" <lh-mythtv at lorcanhamill.com>
> 
> To: <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 11:06 PM
> Subject: [mythtv-users] PVR-350 - PAL-I Variant, for use in Ireland?
> 
> 
> 
>>Hi All,
>>
>>First post from a MythTV newbie, so go easy on me. :)
>>
>>I've just bought a Hauppauge PVR-350, with the intention of
>>bulding a Myth-based PVR.  But it looks like I may have made
>>a really dumb mistake, and bought the wrong version...
>>
>>I live in Dublin, Ireland, and I want to use the card with
>>the local NTL cable service.  I bought the card over the web
>>from a company in Germany.  At the time, I thoght that was a
>>reasonable thing to do, since Germany and Ireland both use PAL,
>>right?
>>
>>Well, now I can't get the card to work.  As I installed it,
>>I noticed that the card has a label on it that says:
>>
>>   "PAL-B/G  48134  Rev J347"
>>
>>I think that "PAL-B/G" is the problem - it's PAL-I that we use
>>in Ireland, it seems - at least according to this list of
>>broadcast standards by country:
>>
>>  http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/WorldVideo.html
>>
>>(Wish I'd seen that *before* I bought the card.)
>>
>>I tried installing the card anyway, and installed the Windows
>>software under Windows98 (It's a dual-boot setup, with Win98SE
>>and RedHat 9 at the moment.)  The Windows channel-scanning
>>application found 15 channels on my NTL Cable connection, which
>>is correct - but when I try to view  them, all I get is
>>a black screen.
>>
>>So far, I haven't started installing the ivtv driver or any
>>other Linux software.  But when I run "lspci", the output now
>>includes this, all on one line:
>>
>>00:0e.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc
>>   iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev01)
>>
>>So, I've got lots of questions:
>>
>>   Am I right in thinking that this card is a version
>>   that works in Germany, but not in Ireland?
>>
>>   Is it possible that there's something I can do in software
>>   (or firmware) that will make this card work with PAL-I?
>>
>>   Does a PAL-I version of the PVR-350 exist, and where
>>   would I buy one?  (I've seen the PVR-250 in stores here,
>>   but never the 350.)
>>
>>   Has anyone got a PVR-350 (or 250) working with NTL's
>>   cable service (the basic analogue package) in Dublin?
>>
>>   Does anyone want to buy a PAL-B/G PVR-350, as new?  :)
>>
>>Any answers would be *very* gratefully received.
>>
>>Thanks in advance!
>>
>>Lorcan Hamill
>>
>>
> 
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