PVRec 0.10 review

PVRec is a simple applet written in Gambas that takes an MPEG-2 stream from the pvrusb driver for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB and all

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: Rob Kudla

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PVRec is a simple applet written in Gambas that takes an MPEG-2 stream from the pvrusb driver for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB and allows you to simultaneously view (using Mplayer) and record it.

PVRec is basically the smallest amount of code I could write to let myself easily record video using the PVR USB without doing so blindly. In the future I hope to include more PVR-esque features like scheduled recording, basic format conversions (i.e. Divx/Xvid
instead of MPEG-2) and maybe better mplayer automation, but this should at least let you get the job done as far as getting video into your computer. In essence, PVRec is nothing but a GUI with three pipes.

If you have any problems capturing video with it, e.g. a blank mplayer window or mplayer never comes up at all or the bytes received counter never increases, try the following:

cat /dev/usb/lp0 >myvideo.mpg

and see if that lets you get any video either. If it doesn't, then it's a problem with the driver or your PVR USB, and not this program. If it does, well, there's a reason I made this version 0.1.

PVRec requires Gambas, which I have packaged for Mandrake Linux and which is available at http://gambas.sf.net. The pvrusb driver is available at http://pvrusb.sf.net. If you plan on viewing the video while you record it, you'll need mplayer as well; if you don't have a prebuilt version of mplayer for your Linux distribution, I have to pity you and hope mplayer is easier to build than it used to be.