BTV Aux Input Select

[mikecowley]

How do you select the AUX input with Beyond TV? I'm trying to use the Aux input of my HVR1800 to record old VCR video tapes. The only way I have been able to do this so far is to remove the channel lineup and TV scheduler and select ONLY the tuners AUX input. Then I have to schedule
the recording. Is there an easier way to use BTV this way?

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by mikecowley

How do you select the AUX input with Beyond TV? I'm trying to use the Aux input of my HVR1800 to record old VCR video tapes. The only way I have been able to do this so far is to remove the channel lineup and TV scheduler and select ONLY the tuners AUX input. Then I have to schedule
the recording. Is there an easier way to use BTV this way?

I use WinTV, setting up a "channel" to be your desired input. Wintv comes with your card, or you can get it at Hauppauge.com.

Using BTV to do this is doing it the Hard Way.

[mtmsol]

While I agree that it's easier to use another program such as WinTV, I have done this with BTV. Here are instructions using the web admin:

1. Go to Settings -> Basic Settings -> Channels and click the 'Create New' button beside the channel lineup drop down
2. Give the new lineup a meaningfull name such as 'VCR'
3. Click the 'Add Channels' button
4. Put an unusued channel number into the range (for example I don't already have a channel 1, so I madfe the range 1-1), then clik the 'Add Range' button
5. Click the 'Save Lineup As' button and enter another meaningfull name, again I'll use 'VCR'
6. Go to Settings -> Basic Settings -> Audio and Video Inputs then click the 'Create New Source' button
7. Enter a meaningfull Friendly Name, again I'll use VCR
8. Ensure TV is selected as the Tuner Type, and Analog TV as the Tuner Singal Type
9. Select the desired video device from the drop down
10. From the Video Input drop down, choose the correct input (probably Video Composite In)
11. From the Channel Line Up drop down choose the VCR lineup you created
12. From the External Tuning drop down choose 'Null Tuner'
13. Click Save Changes

The setup portion is now complete, time to test it out. The rest of the steps are performed from the BTV viewscape. Go to Live TV, and tune to the unused channel you selected when you created the line up (I chose 1 in my example). Play a tape in your VCR and you should get the audio and video from your tape. If this works you are ready to proceed, if not ensure the VCR is hooked up to the composite audio and video connectors on the tuner you selected, go through the above setup instructions to ensure nothing was missed and try again. Once you've successfully tested the setup, it's time to record.

1. Put the tape to be recorded in your VCR and ensure it is rewound to where you want the recording to begin - don't press play on the VCR yet.
2. Go to the Program Guide and find the channel you assigned to the VCR - the guide data should show Unavailable for this channel.
3. Select this channel then choose 'Manual Recording'.
4. Set the title to whatever you want to name the recording
5. Change the Recording Frequency to Once
6. Set the date to today's date (this should be the default)
7. Set the Start Time to the first 15 min. increment that had already passed (for example if it's currently 10:05 AM then set the Start Time to 10:00 AM)
8. Set the duration to be the length of the recording - remember, it will count from the Start Time you set. In my example above the start time was 5 mins. in the past, so add 5 mins. to the duration.
9. Enusre the channel is set to the one you setup (1 in my example, this should be the default)
10. Select 'Schedule This Show' then press play on the VCR

Once the recording finishes, go into your recorded shows and you should see it there. You might have a bit of blank space at the start and/or end of the recording, so you could use a video editor to clean this up.
Again, this is not the easiest approach to this, but I have used it because I could not get WinTV to work properly for me and I didn't want to install extra software. Hope this helps, enjoy.

[Mike DiBella]

After setup using the first section above, you can also use the Record Now link in the web admin to start recording immediately for any duration on a specific channel/source.

You can give the recording a name there as well.