bTV FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The idea of bTV came to me because the program that came with my tuner card
was terribly uncomfortable to use and the picture quality was poor.
From the beginning picture quality was my main target.
That's why I have decided not to use the drivers but to control directly the chip on the card.
It allowed to double the picture refreshment frequency (that is 50Hz PAL/60Hz NTSC) from what other programs offer.
Unfortunately that also means that support for all card's features must be in the program itself
and must be written virtually from zero.

TV tuner cards differs each from another, especially in the sound part.
Their manufacturers add extra chips switching or decoding stereo sound.
It is impossible for me to test, check or buy all available cards.
Original program is written by the manufacturer for his own card,
so he can add support for all functions on the card.
I can't test all cards that's why some functions don't work on some cards.
The most frequent problem is the sound, which is caused by the fact that the manufacturer
has put an extra chip switching or decoding stereo sound.
Support for such features can't be added without possibility of testing it
even if it is known what chip is installed on the card.
The same situation is with remote controllers. Most of them works on the same basis,
but there are few that works in a way only heavens knows of (and the people who made it)
and support for these can't be added without knowing how this thing works.

It is virtually impossible for bTV to support all functions of all cards.
That's why there may be some troubles on some of them and it's sad reality.

Install newest version on BTV.
Generally bTV does not require to install drivers for your tuner card because it has it's own driver.
Sometimes, however, without the drivers system does not fully initialize the card.
If the Windows freezes or that message appears after running bTV
it means that you should install drivers that will initalize your card and allocate it's resources.
If you're using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you can download WDM drivers
from my page (www.borgtech.org) or from www.iulab.com.

I neither do make drivers for tuner cards nor collect them.
Go to the card manufacturer's web page, there you should find drivers for various Windows versions.
If you're looking WDM drivers (for Windows 2000 or XP), take a look at
www.iulab.com and check if these drivers do support your card.

It looks that older versions of bTV don't work in Windows XP.
If they do then you're just lucky :-).
There will be no updates for these versions.

Most probably you have set wrong tuner type (Philips/Temic/ALPS).
If you set wrong tuner, you won't be able to search all programs,
you will have a blue screen or noise instead of picture.
LG tuners are compatible with the Philips, so choose Philips in place of LG.

Note that most predefined areas contain only additional cable frequecies.
The base area for Europe is "Europe Air" (channels 21-69).
Also try to search whole band.

Most probably you have set wrong tuner type (Philips/Temic/ALPS).
If you set wrong tuner, you won't be able to search all programs,
you will have a blue screen or noise instead of picture.
LG tuners are compatible with the Philips, so choose Philips in place of LG.

First check your sound mixer if your tuner line is enabled.
Maybe bTV can't handle your sound mixer properly.

First try every card on the list. Maybe you'll get the sound.
There a lot of cards that are very much the same, only sold under different names.

Try every other card on the list. Maybe you'll get the sound.
There a lot of cards that are very much the same, only sold under different names.

Nope, bTV doesn't work and support for it is not planned.

Sorry, it's not. bTV requires tv card with the BT848/849/878/879 chip.
It doesn't work on graphics cards with video-in input and support for them is not planned.

You must have PCI card. USB is not supported...

Most probably this fault is caused by your graphics card driver.
It disables picture stretching even if your graphics card can do that.
Eg. nVidia driver for Windows NT doesn't allow to shrink picture but it works all right in Windows 98.
You can decrease capture resolution and then you should be able to stretch the window,
but this will result in some picture quality degradation.
You can also try to download the latest drivers from your graphics card manufacturer's web page.

This effect is called interlace. This is whole truth about how the tv signal is really sent
and consequence of the fact that bTV refreshes picture 50 times per second (true 50 Hz).
It is also visible on your TV set, when you watch white horizontal lines
on black background they flicker. Unless you have a 100Hz TV.
To minimize this effect use Deinterlace module. You can choose different methods to remove interlacing.

Because bTV delivers you high resolution picture with 50 Hz frequency (60 Hz for NTSC),
therefore you get the best picture quality your tv card can only give.
Other programs may use smaller resolutions or refresh picture less frequently.

Computer tv cards usually requires stronger signal that ordinary TV.
Even if you have connected your card directly to the cable socket or antenna,
signal may not be strong enough. Connect additional antenna signal amplifier and bars should disappear.

Probably your tv card is connected to the same interrupt (IRQ) as any other card.
TV cards usually require to have it's own interrupt and will not work
with the others cards sharing the same IRQ.
The simplest fix to this problem is to put tv card into another slot or swap with some other card.
Be careful not to place your tv card next to the graphics card (usually at the top),
because this slot often share interrupt with graphics card. Sometimes there is no other way
but inserting your cards in different combinations and check if they can work together.
You can also try to assign different interrupts in Bios.
Check the motherboard manual to see if it is possible and how to do it.

Also try to run bTV with MINHARDWARE parameter, which will force SafeMode.

This effects shows up mostly if you have graphics card based in the nVidia (Riva) chipset.
Open the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Display\0000\NVIDIA\DirectDraw

Ending of the name may differ depending what graphics card or drivers you have.
As you can see on the picture instead of NVIDIA I have ELSA because that card I currently own.
If there is no DirectDraw key create it.
If there is no OverlayMode value create new DWORD value.
Change OverlayMode value from 0 to 5 every time checking if computer is working ok.
If this does not help, create new DWORD value named VideoBusMasterMode and set it to 1.
Restart computer and check if it got any better.

ATTENTION!!! The solution above works only in Windows 98 and Windows ME.

You can also try to change your graphics card drivers.
For Riva TNT, TNT2, m64 recommended version of nVidia drivers (Detonators) is 3.xx.
Installing drivers in 5.xx, 6.xx or 7.xx versions will not make your card any faster,
because those drivers are optimized for Geforce chips.


If you have S3 Savage graphics card it can be helpful to enable SafeMode option in hardware settings.


If you have VIA based motherboard make sure you have installed all the latest patches from VIA (4in1 pack).
Also try to enable FastWrites in Bios and SafeMode option in hardware settings.

Not every graphics card supports Overlay mode.
Especially very old cards with little memory may not work.

Your graphics card drivers are very important.
Sometimes card works very well in Windows 98,
but in Windows 2000 or XP many functions doesn't work well or even are missing.
The only one to be blamed is the manufacturer of this card,
who doesn't update and fixes the drivers.

Every nVidia (Riva) graphics card can handle this mode.
Maybe the problem is in the driver or your desktop graphics mode.
Try to decrease desktop resolution or color depth.
Maybe your graphics card have not enough memory to run required display mode.
Also try to decrease picture refreshment frequency.
Overlay mode works properly on RivaTNT2 Pro card with 32MB video memory
in 1280x1024 resolution with 32 bit color.

Try also to run bTV with the FULLSCREEN=1 option. Maybe your graphics card
allows you to use overlay mode only on full screen.

Overlay mode allows to display a special window over a picture that is being displayed by the graphics card.
A big advantage of this mode is that overlaying, displaying and stretching such window is done by the graphics card.
In addition almost every card is able to filter the picture to avoid unpleasant
visual artefacts while shrinking or stretching window
and to convert data from YUV/YUY2 format (which is the most frequently format used to store video data)
to RGB format in which graphics card displays the picture.

The most important thing is that all these operations are performed by the graphics card,
not by processor. They are available almost "for free".
That's why bTV uses that mode to display the picture.

It's easy. All you have to do is to export and save one key from system registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borg Software\bTV Professional

Later if you want to restore all settings just double click on the exported file
and all settings will be restored.

Select Run... in menu Start and enter regedit

WARNING !!! If you are not an experienced user DO NOT make unnecessary experiments
on your system registry, that may lead to a complete corruption of the Windows system.