Cant record in stereo

[jwalloga]

I have a Hauppauge 250mce and composite hookups. All i can get with Sage is mono recordings - what am i doing wrong?

[kny3twalker]

maybe the decoder you are using in Sage is set to mono and the recordings are fine

[jwalloga]

Frey, thanks for responding. Where do I access that setting?

[jwalloga]

I also do not have asoundacrd installed on this PVR computer because of PCI space issues. I am using the integrated audio on the soundcard - does that effect encoding with this card? I did't think you needed a soundcard to encode.

[jwalloga]

My error, I did install an old soundcard. Let me recap:

My PVR System:
Celeron 400 Mhz
Using On-Board Video
196 MB RAM
AUDIOPCI 9741 PCI Sound Card
Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250MCE

I have A Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250. The video out and audio out (L/R) from the SA box are connected to the video in and audio in (L/R) of the Hauppauge. When I select TV Tuner in WINTV2000, I am told the sound I have is mono, but when I select Composite I am told it is Stereo. I cannot encode in stereo though, in either the Hauppauge WINTV application or the Sage TV application.

Somehow, my computer believes there is stereo sound, but the card is no encoding in stereo format.

Is there any connection I need to make between my soundcard and Hauppauge? I didn’t think there was because it is hardware based encoding.

By the way, I simply take the MPEG2 file that is encoded and burn that to a DVD with ULEADMovieFactory. That’s why the PVR box is so simple in it components. I don’t need to render video on this box, but capture the file.

[jwalloga]

Another thought, could it be a driver issue? The reason I say this is I bought a PVR250MCE, which is usually used in a Windows Media Center PC, but I simply have Windows xp Professional. I got the PVR250 driver from the Hauppauge website. Maybe I need the PVR250MCE driver, but I don't know if that one will only work with Windows MCE pc's. Maybe that's why the composite will only give me mono?

[kny3twalker]

if you selecting tuner input and record from it
from your STB box it will be mono
you need to select composite input and record from composite and it will be stereo

if you have the coxial output of your STB connected to your pvr 250 unplug it unless you are using analogue cable as well

you simply just need the RCAs connected and then record from composite

[jwalloga]

kny3twalker, thanks again. That's exactly what I have done. I have confirmed that the stream that is rtecorded to the MPEG is stereo. When I burn the MPEG2 to a DVD with Ulead Moviefactory2, and then take that DVD and play it in my Sony DVD player, the Sony player says it is playing an MPEG file. The only way I can get anything like Stereo is if I hit the "Virtual 3D Surround" button on my DVD. It seems a bit odd to me, but I am getting a stereo recorded stream, just doesn't sound great when I put it in my DVD. Maybe its ULEAD.

[kny3twalker]

I could be Ulead but also most DVDs are AC3 so the sound is much better

the pvr cards cannot do this currently
with HDTV cards you can record AC3 though so give it some and the better audio will be here

as long as the recordings are stereo, it could just be the setup of the home theater that you are using

you are trying to 5.1 stereo perhaps