Pretty much anything you can do in a shell script you can do by hand. That's why I fed you the command to try.

As for troubleshooting... See this wiki page. http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=BlackScreenWatchingTV At the moment it has a North American bias simply because no one from ANZ or the EU, or ... has plugged in the specific settings for that area, but the overall config walk through is still reasonable, especially if you pay attention to the logic of it and look for the overall pattern.

Did you mean a different link ? Thats the link you gave me in your first reply

I think maybe using an external tuner might be the first step. See if I can get a picture when channel scanning is eliminated. Failing that, I might give an Xubuntu install a go with apt-get install mythtv .... etc etc

The classics bear repetition. The usual logiile file extracts (follow the link on that page to CheckingLogFiles) might provide more info. For example, I saw something recently about a new chipset being used on the PVR-350s which isn't recognized yet and thus required forcing the tuner type.

While you're at it, go vist the IVTV mailing list archives and see if there's any reports showing up there.

Thanks tjc. It seems to detect as its listed correctly in the mythtv setup pages in the field that listed what has been detected.

But I'll do as you suggested. There must be a simple cure.

I ran an RCA cable from the Video out of the Foxtel box to the little convert that came with the PVR-350 into the S-Video in of the PVR-350

Re did the setup, selected Svideo1 as the input and all. Did a channel scan and it found a channel on every channel [obviously the same channel] Went back into "normal" mode and selected Watch TV. Worked fine, able to rwd and fwd live TV from my Foxtel.

So the problem is definitely just in the tuning of the built in Tuner.

I'll try the tuner again and check the logs ....

PS Would it matter that our Antenna is a Wollongong Antenna, not a Sydney one ?

I suspect we're at the point where you need a local expert.
- Check with the other guys from Oz, they might be able to provide the needed "local" knowlege. It might pay to drop Greg Frost, Girkers, nigelpearson, turpie, ... notes since they're all from out that way.
- Check out the wiki page with special setup information for AUS.
- Search the forums for an issue with the AUS program guide grabber in R5E50... I seem to remember seeing something on this within the last week or so.
- Finally, adding a location in your profile might also help catch the eye of anyone else who could help...

Well I did the last point some time ago, but I will follow up the other points.

Thanks alot for your efforts and time tjc

G'Day DaveQB.
I'm not using the tuner of the PVR350, as I've been under the impression (so far) that my card is an NTSC card and that you can't change it from NTSC to PAL. I have a DVICO Fusion plus DVB-T for free to air.

I have my Foxtel box (UEC Technologies) svideo output connected to the svideo input of my PVR-350.
I can watch foxtel live TV with no problems. My serial IRBlaster even works and changes foxtel channels flawlessly.

I'd be intested to know if you can schedule recordings and use the svideo input (set up as svideo0 in my mythtv-setup as well).

I can schedule recordings, but I get the following errors in my mythbackend.log:

2007-04-04 15:56:09.154 Running HouseKeeping
2007-04-04 16:00:02.195 TVRec(2): Changing from None to RecordingOnly
2007-04-04 16:00:02.215 ChannelBase: Could not find input: Composite1 on card when setting channel 132
2007-04-04 16:00:02.221 TVRec(2) Error: Failed to set channel to 132. Reverting to kState_None
2007-04-04 16:00:02.223 TVRec(2): Changing from RecordingOnly to None
2007-04-04 16:00:02.227 Finished recording Tripping the Rift "The Devil And A Guy Named Webster": channel 2068
2007-04-04 16:00:02.249 Started recording: Tripping the Rift "The Devil And A Guy Named Webster": channel 2068 on cardid 2, sourceid 2
2007-04-04 16:00:03.259 Reschedule requested for id 0.
2007-04-04 16:00:03.414 Scheduled 10 items in 0.2 = 0.00 match + 0.15 place
2007-04-04 16:01:09.154 Running HouseKeeping

I also find that in the recordings list, the size is 'B'

_________________
Cheers,

Dave.
Knoppmyth R5B7.
GA-8I848P / P4 3GHz / 1GB RAM / 3 X 200GB HDU
DVICO Fusion HDTV DVB-T Plus
DVICO MCE Remote
Hauppauge PVR-350 (Foxtel analog capture)
IR Blaster on Foxtel UEC DSN-1000
Audigy 2 ZS
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

Dave, If I may suggest, look at your Basic settings in mythtv-setup, In General you will need to check the TV Format is set for PAL, the VBI Format is set to PAL Teletext and the Channel Frequency table is set to australia (of course! ).
In Capture Cards, it is set up for a PVRx50 MPEG2 capture card and you have selected the correct /dev/video device.
In Video Sources, I'll assume that you have set up the grabber.
In Input Connections, check that you have attached the Video Source to your tuner input.
In the Channel Editor, you need to check for each channel the Video Source for it and on the second screen (the one where the sliders are), what is the Frequency Channel number for that particular channel. You will need the channel settings for your local transmitter(s).
You will need to restart mythbackend.
Hopefully you should now be able to tune into your channels.

mdl The easy way to check that is on the silver tuner shield it should say whether it is NTSC or PAL and what variant (PAL B/G etc.) it is. You will need to open up your PC to check.

In Input Connections, have you set your Video Source to Composite1 or S-Video1?

Bruce S.

_________________
Updated 2019/10/26: AthlonII X2 265 Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P
16Gb PC 1866 DDR3, 500GB+2TB+4TB SATA HDD,
SATA DVD-RW Asus DRW-24D5MT , NVIDIA GeForce GT1080
Hauppauage Nova-T 500, Nova-T LinHes R8.6.1

Hi Bruce,
Many thanks for your advice.
I'm not using the tuner interface. Only the Svideo interface.
Everything is set up ok, as I can actually watch foxtel through the svideo interface. It's just that I can't schedule and get a successful recording from Foxtel (even though I can watch live TV on that svideo interface, and the TV is recorded).
My grabber works perfectly, and in my Input Connections - I have selected svideo0 (as anything else just gives me a black screen for a few seconds and then backs out to the Watch TV menu).

_________________
Cheers,

Dave.
Knoppmyth R5B7.
GA-8I848P / P4 3GHz / 1GB RAM / 3 X 200GB HDU
DVICO Fusion HDTV DVB-T Plus
DVICO MCE Remote
Hauppauge PVR-350 (Foxtel analog capture)
IR Blaster on Foxtel UEC DSN-1000
Audigy 2 ZS
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

The first part of the post was for Dave.


That's interesting, it appears that there must be some confusion in your databases someplace as your logfile complains about ChannelBase: Could not find input: Composite1 on card when setting channel 132.
What might be interesting is comparing the mythbackend.log where you are watching LiveTV as compared with a scheduled programme.

Bruce S.

_________________
Updated 2019/10/26: AthlonII X2 265 Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P
16Gb PC 1866 DDR3, 500GB+2TB+4TB SATA HDD,
SATA DVD-RW Asus DRW-24D5MT , NVIDIA GeForce GT1080
Hauppauage Nova-T 500, Nova-T LinHes R8.6.1