What Hauppauge driver seems to work best?

[rickster]

I have had my Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 for about 6 months. In this time I have recorded a few dozen movies from my Motorola DCT 2000 digital cable box using the S-Video connector. I have tried to keep up on the latest drivers and apps but I have never been able to make a perfect movie recording. The general video quality is very good but I have never made one that doesn’t glitch as least once throughout the clip. Short five to ten minute clips seem to be fine. I always record with the intent that it will become a DVD video.

It seems like I have had the best luck with WinTV2000 using custom setting like: VBR 4000 to 4800 average, 8000 max, 192 audio and program stream type. Seems like the glitches are less frequent with lower average video bit rates. I have read that one of the problems recording with WinTV2000 is the system resource usage of the preview. I can say for sure that the recordings usually come out looking better than the preview.

I decided to try SageRecorder thinking that if it is the preview causing the recordings to glitch, I would not have this problem if I record with the preview turned off. This doesn’t seem to be the case. In a two hour movie, there will be at least 5 to 7 glitches (dropped frames maybe?) in the recording. This is regardless of what I play it back with and the playback options are many. I have been using the “DVD Long Play” and “DVD Extra Long Play” presets. My last recording was with the 1.2.5 Beta. (Looks like there is a new one so I will give it a try)

I’m wondering if anyone is getting “Perfect Results” every time with their SageRecorder/PVR-250 setup and if so, what driver and app versions are you using? I’m at work right now so I don’t know what PVR driver I currently use. Will update later.

I always record to an empty and/or freshly defragged (sometimes freshly formatted) IBM 15GB 7200RPM ATA 100 drive. I have two of these just for this type of thing.

My PVR system is:
ESC K7S5A ver 3.1 MOBO with Cheapomon Bios, 138/138 MHz busses
Athlon 1800XP+ (Palomino)
Promise Ultra 100TX (maybe TX2?) Card. (All HDDs connected to this card)
WD400BB 40GB System Drive (WinXP Pro SP1)
WD800BB 80GB (Misc DV, MPEG, DVD asset storage)
IBM 75GXP 15GB x2 (PVR capture and other temp media storage
Ricoh RW-5125A DVD+RW drive (Primary Master on MOBO)
Ricoh RW-7200A CD-RW drive (Secondary Master on MOBO)
Gainward Geforce2 MX400 Golden Sample dual head Video card.
SoundBlaster Live 5.1
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250
Linksys 10/100 NIC
ADS Pyro 1394 card
Allied 450W power supply.


Any thoughts?

Rick

[Xleon]

Have you got the latest SB Live! drivers as I believe some of the older drivers had a few issues.

Do you have anything else running at the same time that might cut in and steal CPU or HDD time?

Windows and BIOS power saving functions sometimes used to affect my machine, so I've turned them all off.

You didn't say how much RAM youv'e got, but ensure you have enough to reduce the likely hood it will have to page as often.

[rickster]

Originally posted by Xleon
1) Have you got the latest SB Live! drivers as I believe some of the older drivers had a few issues.

2) Do you have anything else running at the same time that might cut in and steal CPU or HDD time?


3) Windows and BIOS power saving functions sometimes used to affect my machine, so I've turned them all off.


4) You didn't say how much RAM youv'e got, but ensure you have enough to reduce the likely hood it will have to page as often.

Thanks for the reply.

1) I just updated the SB drivers yesterday. Haven't tried an extended recording since.

2) Not really.

3) Yes. I will disabale it all.

4) I have 512MB of Muskin PC2100 CL2

Thanks again, will update tomorrow on how the next recording goes. I have it set to start at 02:30 Pacific time.

Rick

[Narflex]

This is suprising to me. I always get perfect recordings with the PVR250 without any dropped frames, ever. Playback might drop a few frames on occassion, but if I rewind, I'll see it was just an effect of playback and not the recording itself.

I'd be very interested to seee a file with an example of this in it. I'd like to take a look at the MPEG data itself to see where the error is.

SageRecorder simply writes the data that comes off the PCI bus from the PVR250 directly to disk. It can't drop frames in the sense software encoding PVRs can drop frames, because the hardware is outputting data that's not frame-based, it's just a stream of bytes. Bytes can be dropped if your CPU is maxed by something else at the same time, but then you'll end up seeing corruption in the video, it won't be dropped frames in the usual sense. But since you're not maxing it, this is not happening.

I can give you the best advice if I could see it. Can you edit out the portion of one of these files down to a few seconds so it's small enough to email? I'll gladly take a look at it.

Thanks.

[rickster]

Jeff,

I think sending you a short clip is a good idea and this shouldn’t be a problem. I’m at work right now but will make some clips of the movie I recorded last night with 1.2.7 beta’s “DVD Long Play” setting. I have only watched the first 30 minutes or so but I did notice 2 or 3 of these “glitches”.

While watching it, I was streaming from the capture drive on the PVR PC to the HTPC via Ethernet and output from the Xcard. Could capturing to a shared network drive be part of my problem even if I’m not trying to access it while capturing? I just thought of this.

I do have other examples but they have already been cut, de-muxed, audio edited and authored to DVD. I think a clip from an original PVR recording would be the best example to sent you.

On a somewhat related note, I tried to create some custom quality setting last night based on the “HPquality.txt” in the developers section.

I pasted your

mmc/python2_encoding/MyDVD=videobitrate=4500000|width=720|height=480|audiobitrate=224|vbr=1|peakvideobitrate=6000000

example as one line into my “SageRecorder.properties” file then saved.

I opened Sage Recorder and didn’t see this new profile. I closed Sage Recorder and opened “SageRecorder.properties” and saw this:

mmc/python2_encoding/=MyDVD\=videobitrate\=4500000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=6000000 (this is from memory)

as one line.

The “=” was added before “MyDVD” and backslashes were added before the other equal symbols. Is this normal? What am I doing wrong? I would sure like to make my own quality settings.


Thanks again for the reply.

Rick

[SHS]

You must like did with a space in it
mmc/python2_encoding/ MyDVD=
when should have like this
mmc/python2_encoding/MyDVD=
Check out the TXT file I attach with this meesage and you fine some Example

[rickster]

SHS, you've done it again!

That was it. The space was there. It's in the example in “HPquality.txt”. It's working now.

Thanks again.

[rickster]

Jeff, I emailed a zip file containing two short examples of these glitches to "support@freytechnologies.com".

[rickster]

I have uploaded the short mpegs to my website for others to check out if you like. Two short "DVD Long Play" clips in a zip file that is 6,555KB.

http://www.richardmarelli.net/video/pvr_mpeg_glitch.zip

Obviously, if you have a dial up connection it's not really worth it.

Please let me know if anyone is seeing this type of thing. The more I look at them, the more it looks like something other than dropped frames. It looks more like frame reversal or something like that. Very odd. My brother has a PVR-250 and he says he's never seen this type of glitch. Almost every movie I record has this at least once. (Sage or WinTV2k)

I just now updated the driver and apps that I downloaded from SHS's site. I will record something while I'm sleeping tonight. (or rather this morning) Happy Easter!

[Xleon]

I don'y have a proper MPEG frame analyser, but with the few apps I've got, several actually raised an exception while trying to scan those MPEGS, while others ignored the error and played the glitch.

One scanning app reported "Temporal structure wrong in GOP - dropping" so it seems like the actual MPEG stream or file itself is becomming damaged as the same happened on both files when I opened them.

You didn't say how fast your other PC was you were sending the data to across the ethernet. It shouldn't be an issue really but it depends if that PCs doing other stuff as well or if your network has other PCs on.

I can't remember how the PVR250 responds to interruptions in the video stream. Maybe SHS or someone could say if that's an issue or not. I used to have an original PVR and I hated it so I now have a Provideo card. I don't know if there is a slight error on the video input if this would affect how the card outputs the stream.

You don't have any apps that might interfere with the file while you are making it like a drive defragger that sits in the system tray.

What O/S are you using on both PCs?

[rickster]

Thanks for checking it out Xleon,

The PC in my Home Theatre rack is a PIII 500 with 384MB of PC100 in an Abit BE6. The "glitches" appear in any app or PC I use. I don't think there is a network bandwidth problem as i'm able to stream DV to that PC and it outputs to my TV just fine using the Xcard and JovePlayer.

I have four PCs on my LAN. My Athlon 1800XP+, an Athlon 1700+, the PIII 500 HTPC and a P200MMX Linux webserver (local intranet) All but the Linux box use WinXP SP1 All four PC are running 24/7

The clips I uploaded were cut from the orginal captured clip.

I have nothing in my system tray other than the speaker (mixer icon) and my LAN icon while capturing. My Anti Virus app is on the 1700+ system and I manually scan the network drives from time to time. The 1700+ is my ICS host/Firewall. I normally put my cable modem in standby when I'm gone or sleeping. This is when I do most of my recording.

Not sure if I answered all of your questions. If not, please let me know. Thanks again for taking an interest in my issue.

[SHS]

rickster don't worry about it and no it not a drop frame but more like add frame in the wrong place hehe so we just have wait for next drivers up date to fix that mirror preoblem

[rickster]

SHS, Are you saying this is typical output from a PVR-250 using any of the drivers released by Hauppauge so far?

[rickster]

I see that some users at at SHS's forum are seeing this type of thing. http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopi...r=asc&start=45 Are these people indicating that this problem started with the 1.6.21062 drivers?. I have been having my problem for a long time.

I suppose this brings me back to my original question (See Topic) What Happauge driver seems to work best?

[SHS]

That depend on weather or you have iTVC15 or 16
But any case download the latest MCE drivers and copy hcwpvrp2.sys to windows\system32\drivers\ folder that help

[rickster]

Thanks again SHS,

Where should I get the MCE drivers? Are they at your site?. I should not install the driver but just copy the file you suggest?

How can I tell what chip I have?

Update: I found this info on your website. I guess I have the have the iTVC15

[rickster]

After installing the drivers from “hcw1_6b_21062_pp2.zip” that I downloaded form SHS’s site, creating some of my own quality presets and un-shared my capture drive, I have not seen any of these glitches in my recently recorded movies.

I have done three using the following presets:

mmc/python2_encoding/DVD2Hour=videobitrate\=4800000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=7200000

mmc/python2_encoding/DVD2andHalfHour=videobitrate\=3800000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=192|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=5700000

mmc/python2_encoding/DVD2andTenMin=videobitrate\=4450000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=6800000

I also have been quick formatting my capture drive before each capture.

I still have not tried using a fairly high bitrate yet. Plan to experiment with that soon.

Thanks to all of you for your comments and suggestions.

Rick

[edmondlow]

I have also had problems with minor glitches. I was seeing alot of these when using Wintv2000 provided with PVR250. I have seen a drastic reduction when switching to the Sagerecorder . But it is still not perfect. The glitches appear to be frame shifts/out of sink issues and not dropped frames. The video settings I use are 6400 ave bps and 12,000 peak bps. Anything less than about 10,000 peak bps and my vcr recordings are poor. I do not see any reduction/increase in glitches when using lower peak bps rates.

One possible cause I am suspecting is overheating. I have noticed more sever glitches and file coruption if I make two 45 minute recordings back to back. The second recording has many problems. If I stagger the recordings by several hours or turn of the machine and let it cool down, the recording quality is improved. The motherboard temperature reaches ~38 deg C during these recordings.

I will be testing out putting a fan on the PVR250 heatsink and increasing ventillation within the computer case. I have a P4 2.4 GHZ cpu which does output more heat than the pIII cpu.

Edmond

[edmondlow]

Xleon/others,

Could you please tell me your satisfaction with the Provideo card. Have you had any similar problems identified with the PVR250. I have the PVR250 card (2wks) and am wondering if I should switch to the Provideo card to get beter results. I am doing mostly vhs to mpeg (DVD) copying. Will the provideo card do up to 12 bps peak transfer rates.

Thanks,

Edmond

Originally posted by Xleon
I don'y have a proper MPEG frame analyser, but with the few apps I've got, several actually raised an exception while trying to scan those MPEGS, while others ignored the error and played the glitch.

One scanning app reported "Temporal structure wrong in GOP - dropping" so it seems like the actual MPEG stream or file itself is becomming damaged as the same happened on both files when I opened them.

You didn't say how fast your other PC was you were sending the data to across the ethernet. It shouldn't be an issue really but it depends if that PCs doing other stuff as well or if your network has other PCs on.

I can't remember how the PVR250 responds to interruptions in the video stream. Maybe SHS or someone could say if that's an issue or not. I used to have an original PVR and I hated it so I now have a Provideo card. I don't know if there is a slight error on the video input if this would affect how the card outputs the stream.

You don't have any apps that might interfere with the file while you are making it like a drive defragger that sits in the system tray.

What O/S are you using on both PCs?

[Xleon]

I had all sorts of trouble with the Hauppage cards with things going out of sync. I couldn't use most of the captures.

So, I decided to buy the Provideo 256T card as a gamble. I had some trouble getting the card to work in my VIA motherboard and gave up. It seems to like my other motherboards and it's final home is in my Intel BX440.

Capture quality I've found to be better than the Hauppage cards and it has a wealth of adjustments. It's always in sync and I've not had a recording with a dropped frame or any of the glitches which seem to be plaguing others on this forum.

As a test, I've recorded 13Gb files overnight and it's remained in sync the whole time. Not one error, no dropped frames and no MPEG errors. TMPEG is able to cut the stream nicely (which it can't Hauppage streams).

The DVD compliant MPEG2 the PV256T makes has always been accepted by my DVD recording software, my DVD burner and my DVD player.

I've heard there is a PV256T-Pro which also has the audio encoding on board (like the Hauppage 350?). My standard PV256 uses the CPU to encode. I'm running it on a below spec machine (PIII 450 which it says a minimum of a PIII 500) but it runs fine.

The PV256T has a tuner and infra-red remote control. The software that comes with it sucks (as these things always do) but Sage Recorder has come to the rescue of that front!

BTW, I'm currently writing a Girder plugin to use the Remote on the PV256T which is about 3/4 finished, so you'll be able to use that to control SageRecorder.