Hauppauge WinTV PVR-usb2 and Mac

[polsen]

Hi,

I am glad to see that SageTV for Mac is now in beta! I am currently running the Windows version of SageTV on a Mac Mini, and would really like to switch back to OSX.

I downloaded the beta yesterday, hoping that it would work with my Hauppauge WinTV PVR-usb2. Unfortunatly neither SageTV nor the myTV.PVR application (version 3.6.9) recognises the WinTV.

Does anybody have any knowledge of the difference between WinTV PVR-usb2 and Eskape Labs myTV.PVR? And whether it is possible to get the WinTV working in OSX?


Regards - Peder.

[Narflex]

There's older versions of the WinTV PVR USB2 which are the same internally as the myTV.PVR (I have one that I used with the Mac for the first few months of testing). But the currently available WinTV PVR USB2 units are different and currently not supported on the Mac (but they should be at some point in the future). Sorry I don't have the exact model numbers available right now.

[iconic]

Originally Posted by Narflex

There's older versions of the WinTV PVR USB2 which are the same internally as the myTV.PVR (I have one that I used with the Mac for the first few months of testing). But the currently available WinTV PVR USB2 units are different and currently not supported on the Mac (but they should be at some point in the future). Sorry I don't have the exact model numbers available right now.

The model numbers (on the bottom of the units) of the supported WinTV units are 290xx. The newer unsupported units are 240xx. The myTV.pvr units are 291xx (eg: 29132 for my NTSC unit). I don't know what the correlation between those model numbers and part numbers for ordering is, if there is any.

My suggestion is if you don't already have a unit, buy the myTV.pvr unit instead of taking a chance. They look nicer anyways

[HawgGuy]

Models numbered with the pattern "29xxx" are the original type which
use an msp3400 (audio processor) plus an saa7115 (video decoder).
Models numbered with the pattern "24xxx" are a newer type which use
a cx25840 variant in place of the msp3400 and saa7115.

The 29132 model is an "Eskape Labs" device which is intended for a
Mac. The only difference I know of is the color (white instead of
black) and the 1 digit model number difference. Yes, it works with
the pvrusb2 driver :-)

[polsen]

Thanks for the replies. Based on the information it seems my WinTV is supported.

Yesterday I managed to get myTV.pvr 4.0.8 working. Unfortunatly I am now unable to run myTV.pvr 3.6.9, after uninstalling 4.0.8.

I am pretty certain version 3.6.9 did manage to start up when I tried it a few days ago (but unable to find any devices). Now the icon bounces up and down in the Dashboard for a minute and then stops, and the application is marked as unresponsive in the activity monitor.

If I start SageTV it shows the splash screen, and after a few minutes a dialog pops up saying it cannot connect to the server. In the console I can see that it is trying to contact a server at port 31099 (not sure of the exact port, since I haven't access to the Mac at the moment).

I guess some parts of the 4.0.8 installation is still left on my system.

Any ideas?


Regards - Peder.

[bcjenkins]

I would run a spotlight search for any plists or files which might be left over from the 4.0.8 install.
B

[Narflex]

There's a deinstaller option in the application menu (sorry, don't know the right term) for myTV.PVR. Use that to remove it. I had to do the same thing recently.

[iconic]

Originally Posted by polsen

Yesterday I managed to get myTV.pvr 4.0.8 working. Unfortunatly I am now unable to run myTV.pvr 3.6.9, after uninstalling 4.0.8.

Look for a processes named "TrinityServer" and "MyTVSchedulerDaemon", you can look in Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities). Quit them if you find them. Then unplug the power from the device so it has to re-upload the firmware (in case 4.0.8 has a different version).

Make sure you run the deinstaller from 4.0.8 (Look in the MyTV/x menu while running) before trying to install the 3.6.9 version. The installer code in 3.6.9 may not overwrite the 4.0.8 files since their bundle versions are newer.

We're working with Hauppauge to resolve the issues with the 4.0 builds, I'm not sure what happened with them... things were fine with the 3.6 branch, which thankfully they seem to be maintaining.

Oh, and 3.6.9 WILL run on intel boxes despite what Hauppauge's support site says, although the app itself is not native (but that's not our goal here anyways )

[polsen]

Shutting down the Mac, removing power from the WinTV followed by starting the Mac and plugging the power back in to the WinTV fixed it. I thought I had already tried every conceivable combination of unplugging/rebooting - but apparently I missed one ;-)

The firmware upload part must have been the same thing that caused SageTV (Windows) to not detect the WinTV when I rebooted into Windows XP yesterday.

Now I can finally start testing ;-)


Thanks - Peder.

[iconic]

Originally Posted by polsen

Now I can finally start testing ;-)

Glad to hear it!

One more note, you may need to either delete the Sage.properties file (look in /Library/Application Support/SageTV/Data) or remove the capture devices and re-add them once you get 3.6.9 working.