PVR350+PVR250 setup... Help! version numbers? proc amp? video out?

[mattchapin]

Hey all,

Help!

My system has worked great with a PVR250 card for quite some time, and last night I added a PVR350... the results have been disappointing... but I'm confident they can be solved!

The issues I'm currently facing:

- The "Enable Video Out on PVR350" option in Detailed Setup was there for a while, but I rebooted and now it's greyed out! How do I get it back?

- I never did get the video out to work without starting the WinTV2000 application first to "initialize" it... is there a way to get video out to work without using WinTV2000? (This of course is contingent upon getting the first problem fixed!)

- It turns out that the ideal video proc amp "brightness" setting for the PVR350 is about 160, while the ideal for my old PVR250 is more like 140. Is it possible to set the video proc amp settings independently for the two cards? The brightness of the captured video is so different that trying to use a "compromise" setting in the 150 range results in really bad quality from both tuners!

- What is the discussion about version 15 vs. version 16 cards? I'm having trouble finding info on that because the minimum length of search terms is 3 characters!

I've done some searching on these forums and had trouble finding the specific advice I need... if anyone can help me, or point me to a discussion thread I might have missed, it would be very helpful!


Thanks!
-Matt

[carlgar]

See my new post Clarification from Frey wanted concerning 350 and 250 issues for some of the know issues. It also contains links to some threads concerning the issues.

I have not seen a greying out of the "Enable Video Out on PVR350, but that seems to indicate SageTV does not see a PVR 350 card.

[stanger89]

The discussion about 15 vs 16 cards is about which version of MPEG chip the cards have. The 15 is an MPEG codec that can do encode and decode MPEG while the 16 is only an encoder. All 350s use the 15, while older 250s (with a heatsink) have the 15 and newer 250s (without the heatsink) have the 16. Some people experience driver problems when using both 15 and 16 based cards.

The 15's are sometimes called ivac15 or cx23415 (officialy) and the 16's ivac16 or cx23416, that might help you search.

[salsbst]

- It turns out that the ideal video proc amp "brightness" setting for the PVR350 is about 160, while the ideal for my old PVR250 is more like 140. Is it possible to set the video proc amp settings independently for the two cards? The brightness of the captured video is so different that trying to use a "compromise" setting in the 150 range results in really bad quality from both tuners!

I believe that there is no way to do that with v1 of SageTV. Jeff has said that this will be a feature of v2, however.

[mattchapin]

Thanks everyone for your help!

Here's an update of where I stand:

I've got the the PVR350 working great, on its own, including the TV Out feature... but while I'd like to disable software decoding, doing so causes Sage to crash in certain circumstances: The first time I start watching a show it's OK, but then if I try to start watching another show (by changing the channel or using the Sage Guide or Video Library, for instance), Sage crashes. Also, if I put sage to sleep and then reopen it, it crashes.

Solution: Don't disable software decoding!

My next step is to try reinstalling the PVR250. I'm very optimistic!

-Matt