Multiple Creative VCR cards?

[Lester Jacobs]

Is it possible to install multiple Creative VCR cards and have SageTV utilise them in a multi-tuner scenario? Has anyone tried this? I heard rumours that this configuration doesn't work and thus wanted to check things out before buying another Creative card.

Regards
Lester

[sshapiro63]

I have had problems getting a Creative card to play nice with a couple of WinTV cards. I do have 2 DVCR's and I might be able to test a multi card configuration later this week in another PC. If I get a chance to test this I will let you know the results.

However, from my experience so far, the WinTV PVR 250 is a lot easier to work with. You might want to dump the Creative card for a couple of the WinTV cards.

Steve

[Lester Jacobs]

Bump.

Dan or Jeff, any comments? Can one of you definitively answer this question. Creative has the DVCR on sale again...


Cheers
Lester

[Narflex]

I haven't tried it yet. I've got a second card on the way now so I can. If the driver supports it, then Sage should have no problems with it.

There is no confirmation on using 2 DVCR cards in a single machine yet. (but you can do one each in two separate machines and have SageTV control both, it'll look just like they're in the same machine....a new feature of 1.3.2 beta)

Has anyone over on the x-epg forums done this yet? I saw a thread over there talking about multiple DVCRs in one machine at one point.....but I wasn't sure if anyone had actually tried it.

[sshapiro63]

Jeff,

I have 1 pc that has 2 PVR 250 units installed. I have a second pc that I can install 2 Creative cards into. Will 1.3.2 allow me make these 2 systems into a "virtual" 4 tuner single system?

If this is true, is there documentation that discusses the configuration steps? I would like to test this asap.

Thanks,

Steve

[Narflex]

Yes, you can do this. This will be easier to setup in 1.3.3 when it comes out soon, but it's still possible in 1.3.2.

You will need to purchase SageRecorder to run on the 'slave' system. Once you have the cards working on the slave system, let me know, then I'll fill you in on how to do it. (if I get the software out before you do it, the explanation is easier for me, that's why I'm waiting)

[ruel]

I was able to get SageTV 1.2.4 to recognize two Creative cards, got TV from one card, and maybe only a static picture from the other card when trying to schedule two recordings at the same time, but not much beyond that so far.

Jeff, I don't know if there's anything new preventing me from doing this but I can't get 1.3.2 (or 1.2.8) to run. I'm using Win98SE and I was wondering if anyone is using the Creative card with SageTV 1.3.2 under Win98. I don't know about versions 1.2.5 through 1.2.7, but SageTV runs for me with 1.2.4. I did uninstall 1.2.4 first and then tried to install 1.3.2, but no go.

I've been doing some other things for a while, so I'm catching up with the SageTV activity. A bunch of updates have been issued in the two weeks or so when I was off doing other things.

[Lester Jacobs]

Hi ruel,

Please let me know your progress with the dual Creative card setup. I'm looking at trying to pick one up at the current reduced price and would appreciate any feedback you might have once you get SageTV up and running with the dual card setup.

Thanks
Lester

[ruel]

Originally posted by Lester Jacobs
Hi ruel,

Please let me know your progress with the dual Creative card setup. I'm looking at trying to pick one up at the current reduced price and would appreciate any feedback you might have once you get SageTV up and running with the dual card setup.

Thanks
Lester

Hi Lester. I want to wait to see what Jeff says about my version 1.3.2 non-working problem (even if only one DVCR). I've uninstalled 1.2.4 using the remove command from the installation program to remove it but 1.3.2 would not load on my system which uses Win98SE -- so maybe the later versions want WinXP. I've been using Win98SE because I've been using a VfW driver with my ATI TV Wonder card so that I can make that card provide a picture-in-picture in the corner of the screen when I'm using the regular DVCR software in full screen. But if I can get both of the DVCR cards to work under SageTV then I would upgrade the box to WinXP even though I would lose the ATI VfW picture-in-picture trick which wouldn't work with SageTV anyways -- but maybe Jeff can add a PIP where the PIP is provided by a regular TV Tuner card. Otherwise, the second DVCR card becomes a spare card. You're hearing this from me, if you want a DVCR card whether for dual PVR recording or as a spare backup card, then go get one while they are still available. I'm also planning on getting a WinTV-PVR 250 card sometime soon but I want to get the DVCRs to work under SageTV.

FYI, I was able to get my cheapie WinTV-GO card (cheap but still a great card even if mono sound) to record using the Showshifter software while the DVCR was also recording. But the WinTV-GO is a regular TV Tuner card without the hardware encoder which means don't disturb the PC.

[Narflex]

Ruel, I don't know about you're 1.3.2 non-working problem. Please send me more information on it. But I'd highly recommend 2K or XP over 98SE, they're MUCH more stable as operating systems.

[Crazedz]

That and NTFS allows much bigger files so a recording won't be split if it goes over the 4 gig barrier of Fat 32 so the show can be kept as one file on the drive.

Anyway ruel if you can i think you'd end up likeing 2k or xp better than 98 anyway after youv'e gotten used to it as it's just plain much better. Just make sure if you use NTFS that you make sure indexing is turned on for the drives.

[robogeek]

Hey guys,

I have just tried my 2 new DVCR cards in my XP system (Athlon 1600XP, 1Gb RAM, 7200RPM ATA100 hard drives, NVidia AGP graphics card with dual monitors) with SageRecorder with partial success. A Creative DVCR driver successfully installed for each card and SageRecorder v1.3.3 recognized them. When I started SageRecorder for one VBDVCR it was stable with good audio and video. When I go to setup and change to the other card, SageRecorder crashes with a Windows error. When I run SageRecorder again, it is using the second card that I chose before it crashed. The only problem is, the audio is in high speed (sounds like chipmunks) and the video is very choppy with long pauses.

I have not been able to positively confirm exactly which card is being used by SageRecorder, but I suspect the problematic one is the one that is sharing its IRQ with the integrated audio card. My DVCR cards installed fine, with one on its own IRQ and the other one is on a shared IRQ. I have not been able to get around the shared IRQ problem. The system also has an NVidia Personal Cinema (no onboard MPEG2) which gives DirectShow Filter errors and does not work (I did not expect it to, but thought I would give it a try anyway).

I pulled the cards out and put them in my Win98SE machine and that was a total failure. I could not even get the DVCR software to run...and SaveTV (1.2.8 and 1.3.3) and SageRecorder (1.2.8 and 1.3.3) installed fine but both seemed to die right after they start. I enabled the consolewin in the registry, but the window pops up and dies right away and it appears to not show any text before it dies...SageTV and SageRecorder fail before the log is created so I have no clue. I suspect, since it is an older AMD 500MHz machine, that it is a hardware limitation.

Tomorrow I will put the cards back in my XP machine and try SageTV instead of SageRecorder and post some more info.

If anybody has any suggestions or ideas or if you want some more specific info, let me know.

Regards,
robogeek

[Narflex]

My 2nd DVCR card should be here any day...at that point I'll have some good advice I'm sure.

[robogeek]

Hey again,

I have reinstalled my 2 DVCR cards back in my XP machine and installed SageTV beta v1.3.3 with mixed results. When I start SageTV I get a popup Video Error:

There was a problem utilizing the capture card.
Be sure it is installed correctly and no other applications are using it.

I assume this error is referring to the DVCR card that is on the shared interrupt, but I have not been able to positively confirm this and have not seen this in the SageTV log. My assumptions are, the VBDVCR #1 in SageTV refers to the DVCR driver on the lowest interrupt (my lowest is on IRQ3 shared with the integrated audio) and VBDVCR #2 refers to the next highest driver (my second is on IRQ12 with no shared devices).

I was able to get a preview window for one of the DVCRs (VBDVCR #2) but it was initially good video and in sync. But after playing around with SageTV and and trying VBDVCR #1 and going back to VBDVCR #2 it became very choppy and out of sync. The other DVCR (VBDVCR #1) was a black\blank preview window...I assume this is the card that had the Video Error mentioned above. Changing channels on the VBDVCR #1 card generates a DirectShow Timing Error:

There was a problem with time control in DirectShow.
Please consult the log file and report the error.
Failed seeking the DirectShow filter graph after switching files.

After some more messing around with SageTV and changing channels on the VBDVCR #2, I eventually got an error stating something about the capture card stopped sending data and said to shutdown SageTV and reboot the computer to solve the problem.

At this point, I think I will wait another day or so when beta v1.3.4 is out and see if that helps. If problems persist, I will post my results and send my logs for review. I have not tried this with just one card installed, so I guess I should try that too so I have a possible good baseline comparison.

Regards,
robogeek

[ruel]

Originally posted by Narflex
Ruel, I don't know about you're 1.3.2 non-working problem. Please send me more information on it. But I'd highly recommend 2K or XP over 98SE, they're MUCH more stable as operating systems.

I swapped in a test harddrive with WinXP on it. SageTV 1.3.2 seems to work with two DVCR cards. I got it to record two channels at the same time with better success. It crashed a couple times, but I still have to run it through its paces to see if anything else is happening. This is on a clean WinXP installation.

FYI, I use Win98SE because I can do picture-in-picture using the VfW driver with my ATI card providing a TV picture in the corner of the screen while I have the regular DVCR software in full-screen mode for getting live TV in both full screen and the PIP for a live-live combination (or doing a live-and-recording combination). To do something similar under WinXP, I would need to get the new ATI AIW 9700 Pro combined with an ATI TV Wonder card for the ATI AIW 9700 Pro's MultView function to get a PIP. There's the WinFast card that does a PIP but that's only for a live TV and playing a recording combination. It would be nice if SageTV can do a PIP for two live pictures (or one live and one recording, or both recordings).

Also, thanks for transparent / translucent buttons interface in SageTV. Not now but later I'll eventually have to update my webpage with new screenshots.

[Mark Lamutt]

ruel, I'm running Sage 1.32 just fine under Win98se with a provideo card, and it hasn't crashed in 48 days. There's something else going on here. Did you ever send your log files to Jeff from your 98se installation?

[ruel]

Originally posted by Mark Lamutt
ruel, I'm running Sage 1.32 just fine under Win98se with a provideo card, and it hasn't crashed in 48 days. There's something else going on here. Did you ever send your log files to Jeff from your 98se installation?

That's good to hear. So there is hope. SageTV 1.2.4 works under Win98SE for me. Anything after that apparently hates my PC if Win98SE is the OS. I don't understand the difference -- because I don't know what else is happening. So, I'll have to eventually send in the logs. Despite what people generally say about Win98-versus-WinXP, Win98SE is so much easier for me to tweak. For me, WinXP's competition in the desktop environment is Linux and Win98 and the Mac. Fortunately, I can simply now swap the harddrives back and forth for testing. To make it less painful in swapping the system harddrives, I'll have to get another removable harddrive drawer -- I have a removable harddrive drawer for my video harddrive but I'll have to get another one for the system C: drive.

[Narflex]

Do the recordings on both cards playback OK Ruel?

I've got 2 in my workstation now, and I'm having a problem with one of the cards. Its the chipmunk voices. I'm almost positive this has to do with not being able to address each individual card when I set their encoding parameters. The audio's coming out at the wrong frequency (one of the things I configure). I'd need a way to differentiate between the two cards to make this work. Maybe Demo's driver can help with this....I'll ask him. I've also got another idea for this that I'll try now...gotta reboot so I need to stop this message.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Narflex
Do the recordings on both cards playback OK Ruel?

I've got 2 in my workstation now, and I'm having a problem with one of the cards. Its the chipmunk voices. I'm almost positive this has to do with not being able to address each individual card when I set their encoding parameters. The audio's coming out at the wrong frequency (one of the things I configure). I'd need a way to differentiate between the two cards to make this work. Maybe Demo's driver can help with this....I'll ask him. I've also got another idea for this that I'll try now...gotta reboot so I need to stop this message.

Jeff,

Please keep us updated as to your progress on this. I have an opportunity to pick up a few more Creative cards which hinges on your success with this.

Regards
Lester

[ruel]

It seemed okay when I first tried it the other day but there were those crashes. That was like a quick half-hour of fiddling around when it seemed to work where I got the picture. I still have to put it through its paces. Yesterday when I devoted an hour or so to it and I was getting the same results as when I was using 1.2.4.

Then I pulled out one card and it seemed to be okay. But that's just one card although I've become too mesmerized by version 1.3.2's translucent buttons under WinXP.