New Hauppauge HVR-1800 product number?

[SpaceFuzz]

I recently bought a new HVR-1800 (w/ remote) from Mwave.com. It came with a MCE remote and a USB IR receiver that only installs on Windows XP MCE (without a hassle)--hence I believe it would be considered an 1800MCE or 1800 "with remote." The product number on the card is 78521 LF (rev C1E9). It is detected in device manager as Model 78xxx Combo ATSC/QAM. Sage detected the card just find as "Hauppauge WinTV 885 Video Capture TV Tuner" with sources "...885 Video Capture" and "...885 TS Capture."

That being said, Sage set up the analog channels just fine and everything works great. But I have NOT been able to get Sage to detect any digital channels from the TS capture device. WinTV works fine and detects many HD QAM channels.

1) I've followed the original instructions in this thread (creating QAM_FRQ_CACHE.ENABLE, etc). No channels detected, it appears to never tune the card.
2) I then learned that file creates some problems with tuning on some cards and renamed it & retried. No channels detected.
3) I've read through the various troubleshooting and FAQs in the manual and found nothing that made a difference.

One factor that still makes me suspicious... This product number (78521) is not referenced in any forums, in the documentation, or even much on the Internet yet. It is not even acknowledged on the Hauppauge website. I have not seen any reference to the 885 TS Capture device either. So I wonder if this card (or product number) is so new that it is not yet supported directly by Sage. Can anyone confirm?

Before I wipe out Sage and start with a clean install, I'd like to just confirm if anyone else has this exact card and has successfully set this up with QAM. Thanks.

<<< Dan >>>

[happyfirst]

I was just getting ready to buy this and overnight it to make sure HD will work well with Sage and read your review there about this issue.

I'd hate to buy a tuner and find out it doesn't work. Trial is up next week. Trial period is too short IMO to test all the features.

[Conejo]

I don't own any Hauppauge Digital Cards, but,

what happens if you "Setup Video Sources >> Add New Source" add the ...855 TS Capture >> Digital TV Tuner >> select Cable (for QAM), or Antenna/Broadcast (for ATSC OTA) >> ...then:

0) make sure that your cable is connected to BOTH the 'Cable TV' AND 'ATSC' coaxial connectors
1) select a DIGITAL lineup for your zipcode/city ("Digital-<yourcityname>")
2) in Channel Setup, select DISABLE ALL CHANNELS
3) Use 'remap' to change the 'Physical Channel' to its xx-yy number you found in the Hauppauge application (ex:88-2); Do this for a couple of channels
4) Then ENABLE the channel by selecting it's channel number (giving it a green dot)
5) Click the VIEW button to see if any Video/Audio show up
6) Scroll and select DONE WITH CHANNEL SETUP

You're right, the 'scan' should work but sometimes SageTV lacks a reference and can't do a scan without a helper file, or a preview when selecting the tuner for that matter. The Hauppauge website says the 1800 is supported by SageTV.


[EDIT] There seems to be a couple other people 'buzzing' around with HVR-1800 issues, where their scans worked but crashed. I'd still try the method above, and if that didn't work, try uninstalling and reinstalling the Hauppauge 1800 drivers again, with Reboots inbetween just to keep the system happy.

[SpaceFuzz]

Conejo, Thx for the tip. However, I still get confused about the physical channel stuff. I don't know exactly what format Sage expects to see a physical channel (xx-0-xxx, or xx-xxx, or xx-xx, or xxxx). Once I know what Sage expects, then I need help interpreting WinTV's output. Here are a few lines from my WinTV 2000 QAM scan:
Name.........Channel Number.....Digital Channel.....Physical Channel
qam-1........2001....................0.0....................71
qam-2........2002....................0.0....................71
qam-1(1)....2003....................0.0....................72
qam-2(1)....2004....................0.0....................72

So what digits am I using here??? ;-)
Thanks again.

[SpaceFuzz]

Originally Posted by happyfirst

I was just getting ready to buy this and overnight it to make sure HD will work well with Sage and read your review there about this issue.

I'd hate to buy a tuner and find out it doesn't work. Trial is up next week. Trial period is too short IMO to test all the features.

I think I'm just experiencing bleeding edge pains. Hauppauge is an awesome card (even my analog is coming in absolutely beautiful on my 42" plasma with HDMI). Sage is a strong supporter of Hauppauge, too. So I think there are just some minor kinks to work out.

If your trial runs out, I believe you can get another 15 days the next time there is a major update--or perhaps by requesting one. So once I get my kinks worked out, you can order the card and hopefully start another trial.

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by SpaceFuzz

Conejo, Thx for the tip. However, I still get confused about the physical channel stuff. I don't know exactly what format Sage expects to see a physical channel (xx-0-xxx, or xx-xxx, or xx-xx, or xxxx). Once I know what Sage expects, then I need help interpreting WinTV's output. Here are a few lines from my WinTV 2000 QAM scan:
Name.........Channel Number.....Digital Channel.....Physical Channel
qam-1........2001....................0.0....................71
qam-2........2002....................0.0....................71
qam-1(1)....2003....................0.0....................72
qam-2(1)....2004....................0.0....................72

So what digits am I using here??? ;-)
Thanks again.

I'm looking at the SETUP WinTV HVR-1600 with QAM thread for hints. The first two posts give some helpful suggestions for getting the channel scan to work (though you may need to do a fresh install SageTV and download the latest HVR-1800 drivers and uninstall-then-install to get it to work).

It looks like the 1600/1800 are looking for a QAM channel formated as 0-0-0, so what we normally see as (ex: 80-1) you'd need to add a '-0' to make it 80-0-1. For 80-12, the x-y-z becomes 80-1-2 [caveat: sometimes the tuner driver remaps x-y into x-y-z but does so sequentially, so 80-1,80-12, 80-13, 80-15 become --> 80-0-1, 80-0-2, 80-0-3, 80-0-4 which making it necessary to 'discover' the channels through a channel scan if you ever hope to find the correct physical channel.]
You're WinTV application doesn't seem to be displaying the major-minor channel to work from.

It might be possible to find a listing from a QAM Lineup for your city in the QAM Channel Maps - List Your Channels thread, or elsewhere on the internet, then put that into the x-y-z format. No guarantees as this still may be a driver or a “QAM_FRQ_CACHE.ENABLE” setup issue. Only your gray hairs can tell.

[happyfirst]

Have you had any luck in getting your 1800 to work? I went ahead and ordered a whitebox 1800 from newegg and just added it next to my existing Hauppage PVR II. Well, it won't work.

I shows up in DeviceManager just like you say. I didn't look closely at the board for any numbers. I have TWO new video sources just like you mention. One of them offers MULTPLE sources like digital tuner,tv tuner, video in, etc. The other is just digital.

If I try to preview digital from either, I can get nothing. If I try to preview analog from the one, I just get noise. If I try changing channels, it locks the PC up.

I was so excited to get this all working as I thought SageTV was it. This sucks........

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by happyfirst

I went ahead and ordered a whitebox 1800 from newegg and just added it next to my existing Hauppage PVR II. Well, it won't work.

I have TWO new video sources just like you mention. One of them offers MULTPLE sources like digital tuner,tv tuner, video in, etc. The other is just digital.

If I try to preview digital from either, I can get nothing. If I try to preview analog from the one, I just get noise. If I try changing channels, it locks the PC up.

Is this the response from the WinTV application, or what is the response from the WinTV application.
- Is it running the most recent driver; and,
- do you have the antenna/cable connected to both Cable (analog) and ATSC (digital) connections,
- restarted the PC for the driver to load properly.
also:
- Try removing your PvrII, running HCLEAR and installing only the HVR-1800 to test. If it works, then add in your PVR-II.

[happyfirst]

That was all in SageTV.

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Yes
4) Going to try that next.

I've since then downloaded the latest stuff from Hauppage. I'm able to get the QAM channels in WinTV although the numbering and naming is a complete mess. BTW, according to the WinTV channel manager, my board number and revision match the OP, SpaceFuzz's.

If I go into WinTV Channel Manager Sources, and choose the Clear QAM AutoScan, it finds some channels, but a lot are dups and it just names them qam1,qam2, etc (duplicates, so qam1,qam1, 10 times). If I then go back to WinTV, I can see them. But again there are only a few channels, fake HD news channels.

[happyfirst]

I've made some progress but I can't believe what a mess this HD stuff is. And they think the whole US is going to switch in a year?

Anyways, removed all sources. Added a source, chose the digital tuner from the one source that displays all the various source inputs (digital,video,tv tuner, etc). IGNORE that initial preview screen with the up/down channel buttons. It's useless. I chose my cable company's NON-digital lineup. Per another post I found, I let it auto-scan and just let it sit there. It is sloooowwww. Took like 30mins but it eventually found all the channels (I 'think'). And numbered them wierd.

For example, my Vizio LCD with built in QAM finds my NBC as 4.1 and 4.2. The 1800 found it as 76-4-1.

Then tried to add the analog source. It didn't want to scan the analog. And it would take me back to the main source screen with just the one source?

I go into program guide and data is there for all my NON-HD channels but all the HD channels X.X show NO DATA. Plus, now it seems like I can't access the SD version of some HD available channels. Shouldn't I be able to access SD and HD version of the same network on different channels?

So now I'm trying it all over again but I'll I'm choosing my cable company's digital lineup that has the HD channels in the 1000s.

What a time-consuming mess........

[happyfirst]

This is so ridiculously frustrating.

If I choose my cable companies Digital lineup, I basically get nothing. But I get the full program guide for all the channels including the HD (numbered in the 1000s). But I can't tune to those.

I'm running the scan again after going back to cable company NON-digital guide. But that guide only includes info for the SD network channels. How do I get Program Guide info back in for the HD channels?

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by happyfirst

This is so ridiculously frustrating.

If I choose my cable companies Digital lineup, I basically get nothing. But I get the full program guide for all the channels including the HD (numbered in the 1000s). But I can't tune to those.

I'm running the scan again after going back to cable company NON-digital guide. But that guide only includes info for the SD network channels. How do I get Program Guide info back in for the HD channels?

The Guide data should have no effect on what channels are picked up during the scan. Very weird. You might want to try recording the numbers and station ID that the scan picked up (ie: 76-4-1 NBC SD or HD), then remove and add the tuner again using the Digital Lineup, don't scan, but find your channels and do a REMAP 'Physical' using the numbers (ex 76-4-1), enable them and test. A couple of channels at first should tell you if this process works. Don't forget to use DONE and FINISH.

The odd channel numbers make sense if the HVR card is using an intermediary remap chart.

I don't know if you'll have limitations with the number of channels you can have enabled. Other HVR users might know. HDHR users utilizing MS BDA drivers have a 68 active channel limit.

ALSO:

You'll need to keep your normal (non-digital) lineup for the TV-TUNER source devices (analog ch2-125). I believe your HVR (TV-Tuner) and PVR-II card have the same tuning space so can share the same lineup.

[happyfirst]

I'm trying to get back to the point where I did have all the HD channels so I can write every number down but now it's NOT doing it. I can't believe how many times I've run autoscan. And it locks the PC up too sometimes.

Initially doing everything just Analog/SD was a breeze. Flawless. Easy. Anybody could do it I think.

HD is a joke. This is taking an absurd amount of time and tinkering. They need to work on adding more help and tips to getting HD setup properly.

I know I will NEVER recommend this (if they want HD) to anybody that doesn't know what they're doing and isn't prepared to spend a lot of time and curse a lot.

[ke6guj]

Remember, digital recording is still on the cutting edge of technology. Windows MCE doesn't even do native QAM or firewire capturing, only OTA.

As for the general population, the switchover to digital won't be that bad. People with cable or satellite won't have to do anything, and those with OTA will either just plug in the antenna in a new digital set, or add a downconverter STB in front of the old analog TV.

Its just us technophiles that will have issues with setting up OTA, QAM, and firewire tuners so we can capture the digital signal in its original format.

[SpaceFuzz]

OK. I'm not quite as frustrated as (notso)Happyfirst, but there is definitely a complete failure of SageTV to work with this card on the HD/Digital side. My objective analysis is that it is not able to tune the card properly. Here are some concerted steps I took today to try once more to get the digital tuner (TS Capture) to work. Sorry for the verbosity, but I'm in "methodical troubleshooting" mode.

1) Removed all video sources from Sage
2) Uninstalled driver from Device Manager
3) Shut down computer
4) Removed HVR-1800 card
5) Booted up
6) Ran HCWCLEAR.EXE, with Remove All, and "Check INF files for conflicting hardware"
7) Rebooted to complete the uninstall
8) Shut down computer
9) Installed HVR-1800 card
10) Booted up
11) When prompted by "Found New Hardware" wizard, pointed to extracted 3.4d1 Hauppauge drivers
12) Ran setup.exe from extracted 3.4d1 files (installs all Hauppauge apps)
13) Rebooted for good measure (was not prompted to do so).
14) Ran Sage > Setup Video Sources
15) Added Hauppauge WinTV TS Capture > Digital TV Tuner (as HappyFirst mentioned, the preview shows 118-0-2, but never comes up--useless)
16) Picked my Cable Digital local lineup.
17) Said No to autoscan > Disabled All Channels > Scan for Available Channels. (Background video screen turns black, no video shows during scan)
18) Scan crashes SageTVService (I captured the dump files for reference)
19) Service recovery restarts SageTVService
20) Sage appears to be hung on scanning channel 118--it's pegged one of my cpu cores at 100%. I notice green balls on several channels (QAM found). I kill it & restart the main app.
21) I go back into Setup Video Sources to the TS Capture source channel setup and pick several of the enabled (green ball) channels and click view. All the ones I choose give me 0 signal strength and "No Signal"
22) I remove the TS Capture source and try again.
23) This time scan completes, but there are no green balls (channels identified)

Done for tonight.

I'm not well-versed in WinDbg (Windows Debugger), but I opened the dmp files and analyzed them. I found that the crash was probable heap corruption. The debugging output referenced SageTVService.exe and TSSplitter.ax. The exception occurred at ntdll!RtlAllocateHeap+0x000001da. The bugcheck string is "APPLICATION_FAULT_HEAP_CORRUPTION." There was a call to TSSplitter!DllGetClassObject+19663 that was near the top of the stack.

Hope that helps SOMEBODY. ;-) If anyone wants the hdmp and mdmp files, let me know.

My next steps are to file a formal bug report with Sage (never done that before, so I have to learn the steps). After that, I'll probably have a beer and enjoy my Sage with a very sharp analog picture.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by SpaceFuzz

My next steps are to file a formal bug report with Sage (never done that before, so I have to learn the steps). After that, I'll probably have a beer and enjoy my Sage with a very sharp analog picture.

Its pretty simple. Just go to this link http://sage.tv/request.html and fill out the info.

[happyfirst]

I finally got all my HD channels back.

First issue is it seemed after that initial first run where I finally got the HD channels but no HD guide info and then I tried re-setting up the source again with a different cable co guide, after that it wouldn't pick up HD channels anymore. I finally figured out to delete that cache file (that's created when we create that empty QAM ENABLED file). That file appears to list frequencies to help the card scan faster the next time you run a scan. In my case, the subsequent scans would run faster but they'd never pick anything up. So I deleted the freq file, my video source and started over again.

So I'm back to ONE video source and a guide with a mix of SD and HD channels. And the program guide has NO info for any of the HD channels so I can't schedule any HD recordings. I can tune to either SD or HD channels.

And I've got HD playback stutter on both my test server and client. To be fair they are both 2+ old year computers using basic graphics and I'm not too worried about this. The server is a refurbished HP pavillion media center with an AMD 3800+ something, 1gb, and onboard graphics. Usage is like 80% when playing back HD. The client is a P4 2.6 with a basic S3 virge card? All this is for another HD thread once I can figure out how to get HD program guide info. I'm just trying to test this whole Sage thing before I invest in serious hardware.

So

1) Should I only have ONE video source for both the analog and digital portions of the 1800?
2) How do I get program guide info for the HD channels?

[Polypro]

I don't have an 1800, but will be setting one up for a friend. Using The HDHR as a reference, I would use your Extended Basic lineup for the analog tuner, and Digital "kitchen sink" lineup for the digital tuner. Sage's guide will show all the lineups merged...I assume your digital (HD) scan (which you said you can view) gave you "Physical Channel Numbers" like 80-1 and have no guide data. Go into your Digital Tuner channel setup and "Remap a different channel/station to this physical channel" A list of all the channels will pop up that you can order by name or number. If 80-1 shows your Fox HD channel, find it in that list (262 WJBK-DT in my case) and select it. That will remove WJBKDT from 262 in the lineup, and place it in 80-1...with Guide Data.

P

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by happyfirst

I finally got all my HD channels back. [...]

So I'm back to ONE video source and a guide with a mix of SD and HD channels. And the program guide has NO info for any of the HD channels so I can't schedule any HD recordings. I can tune to either SD or HD channels.

... [O]nce I can figure out how to get HD program guide info. I'm just trying to test this whole Sage thing before I invest in serious hardware.

So

1) Should I only have ONE video source for both the analog and digital portions of the 1800?
2) How do I get program guide info for the HD channels?

Glad to see you got it this far

Questions:
a) Did you select a 'digital' lineup, can you see the high-number channels in the list?
b) Are the 'SD' channels in the same scan, and mixed in, your HD channels?

Polypro's directions are correct. I'm going to do a slight rewrite to see if I can make them clearer:

-The usual process-
1) When adding your video source, select 'Hauppauge WinTV TS Capture > Digital TV Tuner' > (skip preview) > 'Device Input to Use: Hauppauge WinTV TS Capture > Digital TV Tuner'
2) Select 'Use Tuner on Capture Card to Tune Cable TV
3) Select 'Use US, Canada or XMLTV Guide Data with this Source'
4) Select 'Cable or Satellite'
5) Enter your Zip Code
6) Select 'DIGITAL-<YourCity>', 'Extended Basic Service'
7) No, Don't scan
8) Disable all Channels
9) Scan for Available Channels (after 'forever' they should show up, but with weird numbering and no guide data)
>> 10) To fix this, select a newly found channel you recognize (using View) and select REMAP
'Remap a different channel/station to this physical channel', A list of all the channels will pop up that you can order by name or number.
[If 80-1 shows your Fox HD channel, find it in that list (262 WJBK-DT in Polypro's case) and select it. That will remove WJBKDT from 262 in the lineup, and place it in 80-1...with Guide Data.]
10a) If you really like seeing the Cable Channels numbers, you can also use REMAP Map to a different Logical Channel (to 262 in Polypro's case) so 262 becomes the channel number once again.

10 alternative) I like to find the Channel with the guide data FIRST and remap it's Physical No/Ch, then erase the odd extra channels before hitting 'Done', but I'm strange that way. This method may or may not work for you.
11) 'Done with Channel Setup' >> 'Back to Summary' >> 'Finish Source Setup' << make sure you do this to save changes!!

!! The SD channels (simulcast in digital format) that you found in your channel scan might not have 'digital channel' assignments (ch 126 or greater) and may need to be share guide data with the analog channel numbers (1-125). This could cause a conflict in channel scheduling if you also have these same channels enabled in an ANALOG Tuner Source. So it's best to enable them in the Digital lineup and disable them in the Analog lineup.



Happyfirst, If you've done 1-9 then you can just skip to #10.
Also, to answer question #1 from above: If you don't receive all your desired channels from the 'TS Capture' source, then you'll want to add the analog 'TV Tuner' source (using the Non-Digital BASIC lineup) and enable the SD analog channels you don't get in SD digital format.

Sage's guide will show all the lineups merged

Hope this helps. -portions of this text plagerized from Polypro.

[happyfirst]

Thanks! Major progress. Followed your instructions and now I have two sources for the 1800, I've got ('most') my HD channels working with guide data and the analog.

1) Seems I need to delete that freq file and restart if I'm going to do a rescan of digital
2) SageTV is now very unstable. Locks up a lot. Server is running on a 2yr AMD 3800+ something.

And now the new big issue:

3) I started watching an analog channel on the server. Then tried to watch an HD channel on a client and it told me it couldn't, that all encoders were in use? Shouldn't I be able to watch analog and digital at the same time from the two PCs through the 1800?