Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250/350 -- Which Drivers Are You Using?

[salsbst]

I'm on 21143.... no horrendous problems but comments at shspvr.com/forum suggest that video quality and channel-change response time have have improved noticably since then.

So, what is everybody using?

1.7.21143?
1.7.21164?
1.7.21174?
1.7.21177?
1.7.21188?

and most importantly, for those who are on versions after 21143, how's it going? Improvements? Problems?

Thanks,
Stuart

[fidget]

I'm using 1.7.21177, from shspvr. I tried using 1.7.21188 from Hauppauge, but couldn't get my wto 250's to work together. With 1.7.21177, I can run two 250s just fine. I do have problems when I add my 350, but I'm working on that.

- Jonathan

[salsbst]

Thanks, Jonathan, that's helpful and encouraging. Have you ever gotten 250s and 350s to play well together? I tried and failed and returned the 350 in exchange for another 250.

[fidget]

I haven't heard back from Hauppauge on my support request (aside from the automated response). I think I will break down and get the 250 from Circuit City to be my third tuner. I really wanted the 350 as my playback interface for when the OSD gets moved over. I will probably keep the 350 in my other computer as a test platform, or unload it on a friend who is building a MythTV system (he's a big Debian Linux geek). After all, having four tuner cards in the same PC would be pushing things just too far, right?

- Jonathan

[salsbst]

2 350s should work. The issue is that you need matching designs for all cards in the system. Both the 250s and the 350s can have the iTVC-15 or iTVC-16 architectures. As long as you don't mix the 15s with the 16s you should be ok.

Most of the 250s today have iTVC-16 whereas most 350s have iTVC-15.

iTVC-15 runs much hotter than the iTVC-16.

At least that's how I understand it.

[salsbst]

?posts are out of order?

[binyan]

I just hit this last night as I was I previously had a 350 and bought the Sage bundle with the client, Sage and the pvr-250. Today was the 1st time I was going to have a recording conflict so I tried to install and configure the 250 with my 350 and after a reboot windows locks up hard.

I hear that 2 250's work but can anyone verify that 2 350's would work?

[salsbst]

binyan, I cannot verify that 2 350s should work, but as long as they have the same model # on the sticker I would think you'd be just fine.

I went through the upgrade process as recommended by shs to get to 21177 tonight, except for this step:

6: Check the registry by searching for the words hcw, wintv, globespan and hauppauge "Note: DON NOT REMOVE the registry key hcw4.0".

Last time I did that, I spent almost an hour on it, so, after ghosting my system, I decided it was overkill.

All seems ok. Of course, having typed that was my kiss of death. I'll report back when my machine is a pile of silicon and plastic.