The VideoLAN Forums

In an effort to reduce the amount of pestering, I am wondering if anyone can confirm they are able to stream a live TV signal from a Hauppauge PVR250 or 350 on a Windows OS?

I cannot seem to get the audio to work. I am not literate in GraphEdit, although I can't seem to get the audio working in that either.

Considering I've tried all this on 3 PCs with a 250 *and* a 350, I am either a total dunce and am missing something simple or there is a bug.

Note: video works fine. No problems there - so I can't be too far from the correct configuration.

Thanks as always-
Dave

I have the same problem. I'm using WinXP with DirectX 9. Is it a bug?

When you try to play your pvr stream locally with VLC (ie. without specifying a stream output), do you have an "audio track" entry in the menu with one "(mpeg)" section ?

If yes than you are streaming audio... it's just that you are streaming silent audio for some reason (wrong input, driver problem ?).

Also, have a look at the latest test release, it includes a new "configure" button in the DirectShow open panel.
(http://www.videolan.org/pub/testing/vlc-0.7.1-test1/)

Hi Guys!

I have exactly the same problem with my brand new PVR 350 sitting in a PIII 933 IBM netvista box running Win2k.
Using the apps that came with the card works great.
Saving a captured mpeg2 file to disk and opening it in VLC 070 and 071 works fine and audio is there.
Streaming the saved mpeg2 file to another VLC box works fine...

However, if I try to open it via directshow I get no sound. No matter if I do it locally or streamed.
I don't understand the "Audio track" and "(mpeg)" stuff, where exactly should this show up?

I did some tweaking in the audio settings using the new Configure button in ver 071.
Changing audio settings like bitrate/sample rate/stereo shows up in the messages window once I play and VLC seems to find matching audio filters. Still no sound though..

Third party apps like SnapStream Beyond TV3 apparently works fine, dont know if they use the directvideo driver though. Besides their claim to streaming is just blue smoke.

Is it something with how the PVR 250/350 handles audio in general that causes this?

Other than this issue I think VideoLan is a stunningly good app with massive support for pretty much any live media out there. Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

I have the PVR 350 and have had same problems as you all, but last night I was able to stream audio for a few hours.
I havn't had time for more testing, so this will have to come later, but just wanted to let you all know that it is working.
I THINK the following has to be in place:
- You have to use a seperate Line in (on soundcard) to be able to stream live tv audio.
- Your soundcard and network card can not share IRQ. My problem has been that the soundcard showes up as good in the device manager, but "No Device" found in the applications. When I had the sound working the devices where found in the applications.
I have not been able to solve this yet, so I think that's why I lost the audio again.
- In the "volume" control make sure that the "line in" under record options are selected and that record volume is tuned up.
- When I got the Audio working I had enabled Video and Audio Transcoding in the VLC "Stream Output" option. I don't know if it's nessecary, but I thought I'd mention it.
Note: If you need higher bitrate than 3072kb/s just type it manually.

Hope this helps some of you. If not, then you all know it has been working for me, so just keep on trying and you'll get there.

Have fun
Finn

Sounds Good!

Hopefully we can figure out a solid way to get this working all the time...
I have tried all the various steps you mentioned with no success whatsoever The odd thing is that when I use another TV app it claims to get the sound from the Hauppauge line audio!? and not my sound card.

Could be that some more driver level talking is needed to get the card to answer properly...

An ugly workaround I have for the moment is to start wintv2000 in the proper channel, set it on pause and minimize it. Then let videolan read the pause buffer, setting the playlist to repeat results in a short jump in video but otherwise fine audio+video.

However this is not LIVE TV and its impossible to switch channels
By the way, does anyone know about a command line util to change channel on the PVR-250/350? would be good for remote work..

Cheers!

The trick to this guys is making sure that the proper input is selected under the recording configuration for your soundcard. VLC just blindly uses the default input mechanizm for recording when you specify your soundcard under the audio section in DirectShow.

Also, if your card is not full-duplex, you will not be able to record and playback at the same time, which means that if you're testing the audio playback using your machine and not another machine on the network, you wouldn't hear it even if it was playing. Make sure you test this on another machine on the network.

Also, as was mentioned before, make sure you are transcoding the audio. It will not work raw.

The majority of the TV cards are probably going to have to make sure the audio is being passed through to the line-in on their sound card.

On my soundcard I can select stero mix as one of the record settings. I use this for the audio with my web cam. It'll send the microphone sound, and any sound that my computer is currently playing. My roommates watch my web cam from their room every once in a while, and I'll mess with them occasionally by playing a weird sound like a girl screaming or an explosion. Get's 'em everytime .

i guess, this is what you need. channel switching included...

http://www.hauppauge.de/files/wintvsel.exe

Finally I figured out what I did.......
Look at this post

Regards,
Finn

A couple workarounds have been mentioned. 1) use a loopback cable from the pvr out back into the line-in on your soundcard, 2) use windows media encoder or vlc dshow:// to make the combined mpeg stream available over http, then use the client of your choice to view it

Well I've collected this list of software components that can be put together with GraphEdit to make a working solution. GraphEdit is part of the DirectX or Platform SDK from Microsoft, and is really only meant for prototyping purposes, not for production uses.

Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II TvTuner
Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II TvAudio
Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Crossbar
Hauppauge WinTV WinTV Color Format Converter 2
Default DirectSound Device
Video Mixing Renderer 9

The filters are generally arranged in the order just listed; you just have to make connecting arrows between them, and click run. To adjust individual filter settings right click on one of the filter boxes.

In VLC 0.8.5 under Open Capture Device / Advanced Options there are two checkboxes for Device properties and Tuner properties. These actually bring up TvTuner and Crossbar mentioned earlier.

However in VLC 0.8.5 it seems the Crossbar setting of Audio Tuner In -> Audio Decoder Out (Pin 1 -> Pin 1), doesn't make a difference because at a higher level VLC picks audio from the default sound card or other specified audio device.

Do you think VLC needs an extra checkbox that overrides that behavior, selecting the specified audio stream as desired?

Not sure if this will help but I had the same issue with my ATI All-In-Wonder... in the Windows Volume Control Properties, switch to Recording Properties under options, make sure the right input is checked and the volume fader is up.

I tried all above mentioned, without success. Even with GraphEdit - I am not able to connect all pins as mentioned above - its impossible... I have 2 150mce cards and have no sound when I want to watch TV with VLC... Cant be sooo difficult - anyone another suggestion?

hauppage dont work with vlc. Unpossible to get sound. I tried that for 3 months. Gave up.

See also https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/4500 (note for followers).