PVR-500 woes

[ptaylor]

I got a new PVR-500 in today. I got it to replace an ATI 550-based card that was giving me problems... Well, guess what? More problems!

It seems that the PVR-500 was conflicting with my SATA controller, so now my SATA drive is toast. All I really lost there was a bunch of encoded DVDs and a few shows, but most had been watched already. Just re-encode the DVDs later and slap them back on the very same drive.

I had to wrestle with this problem for hours, finally removing all my other encoders to ensure that they weren't conflicting with the new tuner. I should have realized the SATA conflict sooner, but even in that case I wouldn't have expected data loss on the drive.

Once I set my BIOS for "Plug and Play OS", everything started working..
Sort of...

I can now add the two tuners and get video and audio, but the video looks extremely poor... So poor, in fact, that it looks like there is a loose connection to the cable. I have re-installed my PVR-250, which has absolutely amazing PQ by comparison. I've swapped the inputs to both cards, and the PVR-250 still looks amazing, so that's not the problem. I've tried a few sets of drivers... (The latest beta, the latest release "base" version, along with whatever version Snapstream's website points you to) But all of them look perfectly awful on both of the 500's tuners. I'm talking PQ like you might see on an old TV with a set of rabbit ears in a laundry-mat. (In both Sage and BeyondTV)

Is there some trick to making this thing work? Or do I have a bad card?

Suggestions anyone?

[carlgar]

I think you probably need to contact Hauppauge Technical support for a new driver that has not yet been made available to the general public. You should also look at the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 500 MCE and First time setup - anolog cable signal looks real poor threads. My first PVR 500 MCE card is a type b and required the 2.0.48.24205 dated 07/24/2006 driver to work properly. My second PRV 500 MCE card is a type a and currently works fine with the 2.0.43.24103 dated 04/13/2006 driver.

[ptaylor]

Thanks for pointing me to these threads. As I'm sure you've guessed, I have a Type B card. My PQ looks terrible, but some of the pictures in that thread were even worse.

There was a time when I would want to stick it out and try all sorts of drivers, etc. to get it to work. But, I just don't have the patience for hardware and driver issues that I used to have. I just want things to work.