Reached my last staw, Sage tv is unreliable ...!

[carlgar]

I have been trying to use Sage TV for the last couple of months. However, I have now reached my final straw and no longer believe Sage TV should be allowed to pretend that this is a solid product. While it may be very solid for a very lite user I do not think it is anywhere near ready for a multi-tuner heavy user in a single user system. I have no knowlegle of how it works on a network but from some of the posts I have it, the network setwork seems to be just as unreliable. My primary compliants are:

1. Frey's refusal to respond to the problems regarding the 250 and 350 card issues. There do not even justify their own posts. I can understand their not being able to correct the problems but their shold have the decency to state, we DO or DO NOT see the problems in house. They should not encouage the use of these cards together, but they do in the sage store with the 350 bundle.

2. The logic for resolving conflicts is very flawed! They do not even look for an available open tuner to assign new programs too. They always go to the first turner pushing programs to other turners not caring about the problems this may create. When a conflict does arise it does not do what you tell it do. Today I had a conflict that I must have responded to at least 6 times today. Yet it refused to do it. I ended up just removing most of my favorite programs. I believe it was in an infinite loop, but since there is no white papers stating how the logic is supposed to work, it is hard to tell if there is any logic at all! This was not the first time I saw this looping problem but was the first time I tried several times to resolve it. The previous times I was in a hurry and just chose the ALWAYS options.

3. I just finishing watching a show so the space could be reused. It was after I finished that I received the message that " seeker was unable to free up space. recording must stop?". I am still not sure of what happened but both of my current recordings where stopped about 1:47:19 and a new segment started at 1:47:20. While I was trying to figure out what happened, it now looks like the second recording which was about to be finished has been deleted. The program that is marked watched is still siting in the guide and has not been deleted by Sage TV. I see that the one recording that was really important to me is now being continued on a third segment that started at 2:05:18. Sage TV system information now shows that 2.143 GB of available diskspace while when this post was started there almost no space. The 2GB was probably recovered because of an unwatched show was deleted. While a watched showed sits in my guide.

I can understand why 2.0 is not available for beta release! They are just getting an idea of how unreliable Sage TV really is.

[ToxMox]

I don't consider myself to be a lite user of SageTV. I have it running on one machine with 3 tuner cards (1 PVR350 and 2 PVR250s) The machine is on 24x7 and is rock solid. It has replaced both my TiVos which are now my backups in case something were to ever happen to my Sage box.

Just thought I'd throw that in.

As for the conflicts and scheduling issues with favorites, I can't comment on those since I have no favorites set nor do I have intelligent recording set and I just manually choose everything I want to record.

[mlbdude]

Ditto for me. I am not a power user I guess, I only use two local tuners and a network tuner keeping my 320 gigs of space always full. About a dozen favorites and I do run IR. Have three clients actively accessing the system at the same time as well. Have never noticed any tuner priority issues (though I do run all using RF and none dual source so can't comment on those issues). Conflict resolution has always worked as well.

I only have experience with two PVR software packages and Sage is leaps and bounds more stable than the other. However, I would not be willing to say it is more stable than a dedicated PVR box like Tivo - there are two many variables on a PC.

[carlgar]

The 350 and 250 card issues I refered to are concerning a type 16 250 card with the 350 card. I have Sent TomMox a PM requesting info about his type of 250 card but I suspect it is type 15 because he has no problems with his setup.

Mlbdude, with all due respect, use of a product without seeing problems does not mean it is reliable. Since you always have you disk full I assume you always have several programs available for deletion by Sage TV. I consider the product unreliable because it does not handle the adnormal conditions. I realize that Sage TV is a fairly new product and I tried to be tolorent for that reason. But a person can only be tolorent for so long. You have probably noticed that most of the problems encounted are by new users. This is quite common because they tend to do things that the product designer did not expect. The exprienced users have learned what to avoid and therefore do not encounter the problems. I am sure if I had not been fighting disk space issues I would have never seen my complaint #3. However, since I did encounter it, it does add the the unreliabilty of the product.

Here's a new complaint #4 to add to my list:
4. Frey does not have having a disk formatted to 64K blocks as a requirement. Yet, looking through the posts one of first responses to almost any problems is do you have your disk formatted with 64k Blocks? It sure looks to me like this is a requirement if you want the product to work properly. I checked the requirements before I even downloaded the trial version. If I had seen that 64K blocks were needed I could have prepared for it and saved a lot of grief of trying to correct the problem after the fact.

[msm]

Formatting to 64K blocks is no way a requirement. If you are happy to defrag your drive every now and then it should make no difference whether you use 4K or 64K blocks,

Matt

[IVB]

How "multi-user" is your setup?
- How many clients or PCs do you have connecting? What's the install base, avg concurrent, & max concurrent?
- How many tuners do you have?

Just wondering if you're simply a few months ahead of some of us, or if there's something else going on. By the end of Q1, I'll be at 4 client PCs, theoretical max of 3 concurrent [3 people in house], but an avg concurrent of <2 [me & wife/child, or me/child & wife, and we hardly ever watch TV at the same time].

[edmc]

carlgar, could you kindly post the version of SageTV you are having troubles with? I, too, had some problems with earlier versions of SageTV with multiple tuners. The version I currently depend upon, 1.4.10, is rock solid with my 2 PVR-250's.

It would also be helpful to understand if you are using Intelligent Recording or used the direct approach to select specific recordings (or some combination). The logic behind each is somewhat different and this would help narrow the discussion to those running as you do.

Finally, such things as you describe will be captured in a log file (which would be very helpful in both discussing and resolving your issues). It is likely that the log is turned off in your particular build but Sage Support can help you out here and turn it on if you are actually interested in finding a solution.

[sudipto]

Carlgar: You may remember that I was also having problems with the ver15 350 and ver16 250. The v15 vs 16 mismatch is a real problem whether Sage agrees or not. I am not saying it is a problem with Sage ... every indication has been that this is a problem with Hauppauge drivers and unless they are willing to fix it, there is little that Sage can do ... but it is a very real problem nonetheless.

However, after having the initial hiccup, I went ahead and removed the 350 from my system and replaced it with another v16 250 ... to make it a dual v16 250 system ... and since then Sage has been working almost falwlessly ! I am going to put a third 250 tuner (also v16) in the box very soon and will see how Sage handles the load.

Sage has been rock solid for me so far but I have seen occasional issues with conflict resolution. I did notice that anytime there is a conflict, Sage tries to use the first tuner, moving the original recording scheduled there to the second tuner if necessary ... but theoretically this shouldn't be a problem, assuming both your tuners are as good. Also, I have seen issues where in cases of heavy conflict involving three or more program choices, Sage does NOT offer all possible combinations of recordings.

I have about 25 or so favorites but I have NOT turned on Intelligent recording yet. I have almost 400GB allocated to recording and the volume is formatted as 64K, so I haven't run into diskspace issues yet.

I still don't like the interface, but I am gradually getting over it and finding that internally Sage is a really solid product and does its main job really well. I am really looking forward to V2.

I feel sorry for the problems you are having and wish someone from Frey will officially address these issues.

[carlgar]

I am really amazed at the number of people that seem unaware of 350 and type 16 250 problems I and several other people have encounted. Some of the other people resolved their problem by returning the 350 card for a 250. I would have done this also but had my 350 for several months. I would have returned the 250 cards but really wanted mutiple turners. I do now but only 2 instead of the 3 that I should have. You can refer to Clarification from Frey wanted concerning 350 and 250 issues as a good stating point. I would still like to see a reply from Frey for that post.

I have a fairly new (Sept 2002) Micron Millennia TS2 with a 4.2GHZ 533FSB with 512K of Memory.

I am running SageTV V1.4.10 in a single system, no networking at all. I was running a 350 with 2 250 cards. I have since removed my 350 card because it was just causing too much grief.

I am not using Intelligent recording (IR), I did have a lot of favorites (around 50).

Even if 64K blocks is not a requirement it could be listed as a recommendation. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!. I think it is resonable that new trial users would look at the requirements but don't think they would read a lot of these posts.

I do have the Patched jar file but am not currently using multiple input sources.

I would like more information concerning the log file, I have not seen any documentation about this.

I hope I caught all the questions, if not please repost or send me a PM.

[danward79]

Hey Calgar

I have a version 16, 250 and version 15, 350 working fine at the moment using the shs drivers 2177, I think. I did have one problem with the quality from the 250, but i beleive it was you who helped me resolve that. It worked by the way...!

Anyway, I have also not had any issues with 64k block formatting, my drive is not formatted to 64K, yet i never have problems.

I do however strongly agree with you that the conflict resolution, of sage could be better.

What i would suggest is as we, have a strong inclin that the issue with version 15 and 16 cards, lies in the hauppauge drivers. Would it be a good idea, if we tried to drum up support from sage tv users, sage tv, and perhaps other software users, to 'Gentally perswade' hauppauge to address this issue?

Are you thinking of changing platform if so what would you change to? I beleive from my research that the only other choice would be myth, I did not chouse it because of my lack of Linux knowledge all though I am tempted to build another system with it for the fun of it to learn.

Good Luck

Regards

Dan

[pawn]

Well, ignoring the unbelievably ignorant tone of your post, I will still respond:


I have been trying to use Sage TV for the last couple of months. However, I have now reached my final straw and no longer believe Sage TV should be allowed to pretend that this is a solid product. While it may be very solid for a very lite user I do not think it is anywhere near ready for a multi-tuner heavy user in a single user system.


It's hard to define "multi-tuner heavy user" system. I have two tuners, one 15 series and one 16 series PVR-250. I use it on one server machine in the family room and one client machine in the bedroom.

The server machine also functions as a DVD player, a home automation server, a home alarm system monitor, an Internet surfing machine and occasionally a game machine.

While, I won't say Sage never has glitches, it routinely runs for weeks at a time without trouble. Any problems that do come up are usually related to the MPEG decoding filters (I.e., sound dropping out which is quickly fixed by rewinding, etc.), which has nothing to do with SageTV.

SageTV hasn't crashed itself for quite some time.


I have no knowlegle of how it works on a network but from some of the posts I have it, the network setwork seems to be just as unreliable.


This is an absolutely useless and spurious comment. You already state you have no experience with it but offer your valuable and well considered opinion anyway. You might want to consider that most new users posting here are looking for help with one thing or another, thus, the heavy problem related post content.


My primary compliants are:

1. Frey's refusal to respond to the problems regarding the 250 and 350 card issues. There do not even justify their own posts. I can understand their not being able to correct the problems but their shold have the decency to state, we DO or DO NOT see the problems in house. They should not encouage the use of these cards together, but they do in the sage store with the 350 bundle.


1.1 Frey is currently addressing what is holding them back more than anything: a snazzy UI. Once they get version 2.0 out to Beta, I would bet the farm they will return to the excellent customer support most people in here are used to.

1.2 If there's a problem with the PVR-250 working properly with a PVR-350, it has nothing to do with SageTV, IT'S A HAUPPAGE PROBLEM.

Let me ask you this: did you happen to own one or both of these tuners before buying Sage? If the answer is yes, and you're now blaming SageTV, who had nothing to do with your purchase, you're being absolutely assinine.



2. The logic for resolving conflicts is very flawed! They do not even look for an available open tuner to assign new programs too. They always go to the first turner pushing programs to other turners not caring about the problems this may create. When a conflict does arise it does not do what you tell it do. Today I had a conflict that I must have responded to at least 6 times today. Yet it refused to do it. I ended up just removing most of my favorite programs. I believe it was in an infinite loop, but since there is no white papers stating how the logic is supposed to work, it is hard to tell if there is any logic at all! This was not the first time I saw this looping problem but was the first time I tried several times to resolve it. The previous times I was in a hurry and just chose the ALWAYS options.


I too have experienced all of the problems you have described in this complaint. However, unlike you, I am waiting for a good opportunity to bring the issue up maturely.

But I don't consider these "reliability" problems. They reduce the effectiveness of SageTV, but I still seem to find it a mind blowingly great piece of software. When you find a flawless piece of software, please come back and let me know so I can prepare for Hell freezing over.


3. I just finishing watching a show so the space could be reused. It was after I finished that I received the message that " seeker was unable to free up space. recording must stop?". I am still not sure of what happened but both of my current recordings where stopped about 1:47:19 and a new segment started at 1:47:20. While I was trying to figure out what happened, it now looks like the second recording which was about to be finished has been deleted. The program that is marked watched is still siting in the guide and has not been deleted by Sage TV. I see that the one recording that was really important to me is now being continued on a third segment that started at 2:05:18. Sage TV system information now shows that 2.143 GB of available diskspace while when this post was started there almost no space. The 2GB was probably recovered because of an unwatched show was deleted. While a watched showed sits in my guide.


In almost a year of use, I have never once seen this problem, or anything whatsoever related to disk space or seeker problems.

I use the feature "Leave XX GB Free" on my disk (I happen to leave 2 GB free at all times). Maybe this is the key to my success.


I can understand why 2.0 is not available for beta release! They are just getting an idea of how unreliable Sage TV really is.

And back to the childishness.

The fact that so many people here have calmly tried to help you regardless of your demeanor, should clue you in to how well respected the developers of Sage are. You're really, really off base.

P.S.: The 64kb cluster suggesttion is in no way a requirement, nor even a SageTV related piece of advice. It's good advice in dealing with one of the most common HTPC problems existing: video stutter. Maybe you should go over to AVSForum and lay into the developers of that forum for your problems. There's lot's of complaints there about all kinds of computer and HTPC problems.

[nicktripp]

Good luck with SnapStream.

[stanger89]

carlgar,

Have you filled out a support request?
Dan got back to me right away the last time I filled one out. Keep in mind this is a forum, while the support from Jeff/Dan has been great through this forum, with a big release coming up it makes sense to me that they aren't following the forum as actively as they have been.
Also have you brought this to the attention of Hauppauge? mailto:techsupport@hauppauge.com

About 3) are you using "Use X Space"? If so, do you have X amount of space available for Sage?

[carlgar]

Originally posted by pawn
Well, ignoring the unbelievably ignorant tone of your post, I will still respon

It's hard to define "multi-tuner heavy user" system. I have two tuners, one 15 series and one 16 series PVR-250. I use it on one server machine in the family room and one client machine in the bedroom.

I believe your above statement may highlight part of the problem. Do you have both cards in just one of the systems?
Do you have one card in the server and the other card in the Client?
I believe the latter the be true. I maintain that there is an issue with the cards in the same machine. However, I have seen at least one response indicating this may not be correct, I am waiting for more information about that now.

I have no knowlegle of how it works on a network but from some of the posts I have it, the network setwork seems to be just as unreliable.

This is an absolutely useless and spurious comment. You already state you have no experience with it but offer your valuable and well considered opinion anyway. You might want to consider that most new users posting here are looking for help with one thing or another, thus, the heavy problem related post content.

OK, I will concede that it may have been spurious but I was trying to point out that I did not have a network, but users that did had their share of problems also.

My primary compliants are:

1. Frey's refusal to respond to the problems regarding the 250 and 350 card issues. There do not even justify their own posts. I can understand their not being able to correct the problems but their shold have the decency to state, we DO or DO NOT see the problems in house. They should not encouage the use of these cards together, but they do in the sage store with the 350 bundle.


1.1 Frey is currently addressing what is holding them back more than anything: a snazzy UI. Once they get version 2.0 out to Beta, I would bet the farm they will return to the excellent customer support most people in here are used to.

1.2 If there's a problem with the PVR-250 working properly with a PVR-350, it has nothing to do with SageTV, IT'S A HAUPPAGE PROBLEM.

Let me ask you this: did you happen to own one or both of these tuners before buying Sage? If the answer is yes, and you're now blaming SageTV, who had nothing to do with your purchase, you're being absolutely assinine.

I believe it is your opinon only that a "Snazzy UI" is holding them back. I believe being pulled in too many directions at once is what is holding them back. I would agree that it is probably HAUPPAGE that must fix this problem, but they clearly state that they do not support multiple turners. I came to this this site because they (Frey) did say they support multiple tuners. I think Frey made a very poor decision to make such a statement if they rely on the HAUPPAGE drivers. However, I did not fault Frey for not fixing the problem. I fault them for not reponding to my request for clarification of this issue. I had the 350 card first and did all may testing with it. When I bought SageTV is when I bought the 250 Cards. I was also aware of the thread concerning the -15 and -16 issue. But, I saw a post by NARFLEX stating that there was no problem. I trusted this post which appears to have been my mistake. Again NARFLEX has not responded to my request for a clarification.

2. The logic for resolving conflicts is very flawed! They do not even look for an available open tuner to assign new programs too. They always go to the first turner pushing programs to other turners not caring about the problems this may create. When a conflict does arise it does not do what you tell it do. Today I had a conflict that I must have responded to at least 6 times today. Yet it refused to do it. I ended up just removing most of my favorite programs. I believe it was in an infinite loop, but since there is no white papers stating how the logic is supposed to work, it is hard to tell if there is any logic at all! This was not the first time I saw this looping problem but was the first time I tried several times to resolve it. The previous times I was in a hurry and just chose the ALWAYS options.


I too have experienced all of the problems you have described in this complaint. However, unlike you, I am waiting for a good opportunity to bring the issue up maturely.

I believe I found my opportunity to bring up the problem.

But I don't consider these "reliability" problems. They reduce the effectiveness of SageTV, but I still seem to find it a mind blowingly great piece of software. When you find a flawless piece of software, please come back and let me know so I can prepare for Hell freezing over.

Call it what you like, it is still a problem.

3. I just finishing watching a show so the space could be reused. It was after I finished that I received the message that " seeker was unable to free up space. recording must stop?". I am still not sure of what happened but both of my current recordings where stopped about 1:47:19 and a new segment started at 1:47:20. While I was trying to figure out what happened, it now looks like the second recording which was about to be finished has been deleted. The program that is marked watched is still siting in the guide and has not been deleted by Sage TV. I see that the one recording that was really important to me is now being continued on a third segment that started at 2:05:18. Sage TV system information now shows that 2.143 GB of available diskspace while when this post was started there almost no space. The 2GB was probably recovered because of an unwatched show was deleted. While a watched showed sits in my guide.

In almost a year of use, I have never once seen this problem, or anything whatsoever related to disk space or seeker problems.

I use the feature "Leave XX GB Free" on my disk (I happen to leave 2 GB free at all times). Maybe this is the key to my success.

The absence of seeing a bug, does not make a product bug-free. It just means the bug has a small window of opportinity. Using the "Leave XX GB Free" should not have any effect on the problem. When SageTV thinks it is out of space it should go through the same logic.

I can understand why 2.0 is not available for beta release! They are just getting an idea of how unreliable Sage TV really is.

And back to the childishness.

The fact that so many people here have calmly tried to help you regardless of your demeanor, should clue you in to how well respected the developers of Sage are. You're really, really off base.

P.S.: The 64kb cluster suggesttion is in no way a requirement, nor even a SageTV related piece of advice. It's good advice in dealing with one of the most common HTPC problems existing: video stutter. Maybe you should go over to AVSForum and lay into the developers of that forum for your problems. There's lot's of complaints there about all kinds of computer and HTPC problems.

You may call it Childishness, but sometimes you just have to shake things up to get a response. The only regret I have concerning the original post is the word crap in the title. I should have reserved that for what HAUPPAUGE produces as software. regardless if how respected the developers may may be, does not mean that they will produce bug free sofeware. I too have respect for the developers but it is waning rapidly, for their failure to respond to many issues. A response indicates that they are at least aware of the issue, even if they state they have no idea. As far as I am concerned there is little excuse for their non-response to my post asking for clarification of their own posts.

[carlgar]

Originally posted by stanger89
carlgar,

Have you filled out a support request?
Dan got back to me right away the last time I filled one out. Keep in mind this is a forum, while the support from Jeff/Dan has been great through this forum, with a big release coming up it makes sense to me that they aren't following the forum as actively as they have been.
Also have you brought this to the attention of Hauppauge? mailto:techsupport@hauppauge.com

About 3) are you using "Use X Space"? If so, do you have X amount of space available for Sage?

No I have not submitted a support request. I went to at one time but the support page indicated that I could post here instead. In addition NARFLEX made a post stating that he had been working on the problem. I will resort to that if I do not see any kind of response from Frey in the next couple of days.

I had the "use all" option selected at the time.

No I have not and will not contact hauppauge. I will not waste my time dealing with them! The fact that I have spent time here posting and responding to posts should indicate that I have much more respect for SageTV than I do for the Hauppauge. When I first starting using the Hauppauge software, I could not believe how poorly it was designed. SageTV has proven that every one of my theories about what the 350 card could do was proven to be correct. For clarification, I did not say that SageTV was poorly designed or that I intended to stop using it. I was stating that it was unreliable and very frustrating to me. I had hope to replace my VCR's with Sage but now only use SageTV for the non-prime networks that I do not have covered by the VCR's. I define prime network as a network that I record from 8-11 on, even if I do not watch all the shows.

[Crazedz]

Now now guys lets not get testy.

Ok about the stability issue i think the rest are right that this isn't a problem with sagetv but rather a hardware issue or in this case a driver issue. I have had up till recently 3 tuners running constantly in my system. Each one a different card, i have a pvr250 (ivac15) a DVCR (recently pulled out because of sync issues that can't be gotten rid of without co-operation from creative which most likely will never happen) and a MPG600 (ivac16) from yuan all of which worked together without a hiccup from sage for weeks at a time.

Their is another person on the sage forums that is running with i belive at this time 5 tuners in sage and i have never heard any complaints from him about sagetv's stability. So if anybody can be called a heavy multi tuner user it would be him.

When Sage was encuraging the use of the 350 and 250 it was before hauppauge came out with the ivac16 cards and the ivac 15 350 and 250 did indeed work well together and still do in sagetv. The fact that this seems to only be a problem with the ivac15 350's and ivac16 250's and that sage works flawlessly with every other card but the DVCR (and even on that it doesn't crash just can't keep sync under system loads) shows quite clearly that it is a driver issue and not a software issue. So in order to get this addressed and hopefully fixed it would be hauppauge that would need to be complained to not Sage. From what danward79 has said in his post it does sound like they may have finally done that in the 2177 drivers on shs's site SHS Unofficial Wintv-PVR so i would give thoughs drivers a try and see if they help.

As for the conflict resolution yes it is still a bit of a problem and one that hopefully will be worked out soon. Though since i dumped the DVCR out of my system i haven't really cared which tuner get's the show both cards work equally well so i haven't thought about it since.

As for the disk space issue this is exactly the reason that their exists not only in sagetv but in showshifter and hauppauges and even DVCR's software an option to leave x much space free on the drive for slack space and im pretty sure tivo handles this the same way. That way it doesn't run out of disk space before it deletes an older file allowing a current recording to finish. In this way you should never have a recording cut on you like that because of a full drive.

The reasons behind 2.0 not being out yet is has been said before their mainly right now trying to resolve one of the most critical complaints about Sagetv the rather plain and unfancy interface. Sage has recieved more complaints on that than anything else though from what i can see of the new interface as well as the ui maker (can't recall the name right now) their comming out with to allow people to customize the ui I don't think anybody will have any complaints about the UI in 2.0. Their maybe also some last minute features their trying to squeeze in and debug to satisfy as many users wishlists as they can before the release. But i aslo point out that they never said it would be out this year in fact i seem to recall an interview in november from HTPCNews.com where Dan said it wouldn't be out till early next year. Though more recently he has hinted at a possible earlier release which is what everybody is hoping for now a pre christmas release of the public beta. I would settle for a pre release alpha just to play around with and and see what it can really do.

Oh and also to help find any bugs

[pawn]

Do you have one card in the server and the other card in the Client?
I believe the latter the be true.



Nope. Both in the server.


I maintain that there is an issue with the cards in the same machine. However, I have seen at least one response indicating this may not be correct, I am waiting for more information about that now.


I can only say, it isn't a problem for me. BTW, I used to have a couple of quirks until I played around with PCI slots a little. But, again, these are quirks with Hauppages drivers, not SageTV.


OK, I will concede that it may have been spurious but I was trying to point out that I did not have a network, but users that did had their share of problems also.


I have a network. Sage Client works great!!


I believe it is your opinon only that a "Snazzy UI" is holding them back. I believe being pulled in too many directions at once is what is holding them back.


They are in business. They are losing business over the lack of a polished UI. I could care less about a polished UI (actually, I like Sage's UI, except for the OSD graphics), but other people do. Building a solid customer foundation will only result in a more solid product overall, and ensure I'm not wasting money and time on a Betamax PVR solution. I'll give them all the slack they need, especially since I already have a solid PVR solution in SageTV 1.4.10.



I would agree that it is probably HAUPPAGE that must fix this problem, but they clearly state that they do not support multiple turners.


Really? That's a stupid position on their behalf. Do you have a link for this?


I came to this this site because they (Frey) did say they support multiple tuners. I think Frey made a very poor decision to make such a statement if they rely on the HAUPPAGE drivers.


What other drivers would they rely on? And they do support multiple tuners, admirably. In fact, as far as I know, they are still the only Windows based PVR solution that does so.


However, I did not fault Frey for not fixing the problem. I fault them for not reponding to my request for clarification of this issue. I had the 350 card first and did all may testing with it. When I bought SageTV is when I bought the 250 Cards. I was also aware of the thread concerning the -15 and -16 issue. But, I saw a post by NARFLEX stating that there was no problem. I trusted this post which appears to have been my mistake.


I have 15 and 16 generation PVR-250 tuners in the same machine, without a problem.


Again NARFLEX has not responded to my request for a clarification.


If this is true, it is unprecedented. Along with stability and features, one of Sage's best merits is the support. Again, the developers are (in my humble opinion) in the middle of a ground breaking metamorphasis as a company. Give 'em a little slack.


Call it what you like, it is still a problem.


No argument, but like any other piece of software, sometimes these things just surface. There are many happy users without problems.


The absence of seeing a bug, does not make a product bug-free. It just means the bug has a small window of opportinity.


Nobody's more irritated at the typical auto speak from a software company "it must be the operating system" or whatever, but story:

Jeff actually spent weeks in back and forth correspondence helping me sort out a couple of problems which turned out to be non-SageTV problems, but general HTPC problems.

I have no doubt that, had you asked your questions at the same time, you would have received the same.


Using the "Leave XX GB Free" should not have any effect on the problem. When SageTV thinks it is out of space it should go through the same logic.


No, but so what? Try it. I'll bet it works.


You may call it Childishness, but sometimes you just have to shake things up to get a response.


Wrong. We all have to pick and choose which thoughts that enter our heads that we decide will drop out of our mouths. I deal every day with people that can't understand that concept and they're, to a person, miserable, unsuccessful people wondering why nothing good happens to them.


The only regret I have concerning the original post is the word crap in the title. I should have reserved that for what HAUPPAUGE produces as software. regardless if how respected the developers may may be, does not mean that they will produce bug free sofeware. I too have respect for the developers but it is waning rapidly, for their failure to respond to many issues. A response indicates that they are at least aware of the issue, even if they state they have no idea. As far as I am concerned there is little excuse for their non-response to my post asking for clarification of their own posts.

Do you mind offering a little more detail on how and when you asked your questions? Because, again, this is not the type of response so many others here received with similar queries.

[pawn]

No I have not submitted a support request. I went to at one time but the support page indicated that I could post here instead. In addition NARFLEX made a post stating that he had been working on the problem. I will resort to that if I do not see any kind of response from Frey in the next couple of days.


So, you haven't gone through the proper supprt channels, and use quotes off their web site regarding their support for multiple tuners? Not good. And all the while, you're most likely aware about the burden they are under trying to produce SageTV 2.0, thus their absence from the USER forum.


I had the "use all" option selected at the time.


I won't repeat my advice.


No I have not and will not contact hauppauge. I will not waste my time dealing with them! The fact that I have spent time here posting and responding to posts should indicate that I have much more respect for SageTV than I do for the Hauppauge. When I first starting using the Hauppauge software, I could not believe how poorly it was designed. SageTV has proven that every one of my theories about what the 350 card could do was proven to be correct. For clarification, I did not say that SageTV was poorly designed or that I intended to stop using it. I was stating that it was unreliable and very frustrating to me. I had hope to replace my VCR's with Sage but now only use SageTV for the non-prime networks that I do not have covered by the VCR's. I define prime network as a network that I record from 8-11 on, even if I do not watch all the shows.

You're disparraging the company that you paid less than $100 dollars to, while letting off the company (and in fact, the company that's actually responsible), that you gave several hundred dollars to for the hardware. Strange.

[sudipto]

Originally posted by pawn
[B]
Do you have one card in the server and the other card in the Client?
I believe the latter the be true.



Nope. Both in the server.


I maintain that there is an issue with the cards in the same machine. However, I have seen at least one response indicating this may not be correct, I am waiting for more information about that now.


I can only say, it isn't a problem for me. BTW, I used to have a couple of quirks until I played around with PCI slots a little. But, again, these are quirks with Hauppages drivers, not SageTV.

Pawn, the problem with v15 and v16 cards in the same machine that Carlgar has mentioned is very true (just do a search for my posts and replies in this regard to see the details). I myself have faced this problem with a v15 350 and a v16 250 and have spent countless number of hours trying out virtually every possibility (including trying all possible combinations of PCI slots) ... but I finally gave up seeing no nearfuture solution and replaced my 350 with a v16 250 ... and things have been great ever since.

The major difference that I see between what you are doing vs what Carlgar and I did, is that you are using both 250's (one v15 one v16), whereas we both used one v15350 alongwith a v16 250. Given that 250 and 350 uses the same drivers and are virtually identical as far as the encoding portion is concerned, I wouldn't think this should make a difference, but it just might.

Since you are among the very few (if not the only one) who has a v15 + v16 combination working fine, I would appreciate if you could post some details of your hardware configuration, including driver details. That may help isolate the issue.

I can also reaffirm that this is definitely an issue with Hauppauge drivers, since I have seen the EXACT same issue with Hauppauge's WinTV2000 application. Moreover, it seems to be a driver initialization issue, as Carlgar has shown using his initialization workaround that so many of us successfully used before. This only solves the poor quality problem though ... not the losing TV out problem on 350.

One final question to you - what recording quality are you using ? The problem with v15 + v16 only seems to show up at higher qualities, and is fixed by setting the recording quality to a low bitrate one temporarily ... so I am wondering if you are, by any chance, using a lower recording bitrate and hence not seeing the issue.

[carlgar]

Originally posted by pawn
No I have not submitted a support request. I went to at one time but the support page indicated that I could post here instead. In addition NARFLEX made a post stating that he had been working on the problem. I will resort to that if I do not see any kind of response from Frey in the next couple of days.


So, you haven't gone through the proper supprt channels, and use quotes off their web site regarding their support for multiple tuners? Not good. And all the while, you're most likely aware about the burden they are under trying to produce SageTV 2.0, thus their absence from the USER forum.

If I did not follow proper support channels frey has no one except themselves to blame. I went to the support page and saw the following statement:

You can also submit a Support Request or use the Discussion Forum to Search for related topics or Register and create a new post.

The or gives equal weight to each option. I may have interpreted this statement in a different manner if I have not been on the support page. The key sentence that should have followed it, but I found on the form itself is:

If you still haven’t found your answer after utilizing these options, please send us a support request using the form below.

FYI: I just submitted a Support Request concerning the 350 with 250 card issue.

No I have not and will not contact hauppauge. I will not waste my time dealing with them! The fact that I have spent time here posting and responding to posts should indicate that I have much more respect for SageTV than I do for the Hauppauge. When I first starting using the Hauppauge software, I could not believe how poorly it was designed. SageTV has proven that every one of my theories about what the 350 card could do was proven to be correct. For clarification, I did not say that SageTV was poorly designed or that I intended to stop using it. I was stating that it was unreliable and very frustrating to me. I had hope to replace my VCR's with Sage but now only use SageTV for the non-prime networks that I do not have covered by the VCR's. I define prime network as a network that I record from 8-11 on, even if I do not watch all the shows.

You're disparraging the company that you paid less than $100 dollars to, while letting off the company (and in fact, the company that's actually responsible), that you gave several hundred dollars to for the hardware. Strange.

You are wrong, I did not let HAUPPAUGE off, go to amazon.com and look at the user reviews for the 350. My review is titled "Good, but not for everyone, August 29, 2003". Keep in mind that this was before I was even aware of SageTV. If I had wrote the review after initial testing of SageTV with the single 350, the review would have been much more positive, but only if used with SageTV. It was my intent not to purchase another HAUPPAUGE product. However, SageTV specifically listed the 350 and 250 cards and the Sage store sold the cards, so I thought they did most of their testing with these cards.
I do not think I am disparraging the company, I think I have listed just facts as I see them. It may have just been bad luck for Frey that I encounted 2 problems on the same day that I had removed my 350 card because it was causing too much grief.