HD-PVR Setup Stories

[Polypro]

For us late adopters, are the following currently true:

Some C2 units are still locking up.
Playback on a Vista client does not use DXVA with VMR9.
Still no 5.1 audio capture.

????


Thanks,

P

[ProAm500]

ok so i got my hd-pvr yesterday. The drivers and install went fairly smooth. TME works in the preview window with s-video from my stb connected. I havent tried capturing using the software yet, but the video in the preview is pretty smooth, no hitches what-so-ever. Sage though, is a different story. I also have an HVR-1600 in thie set-up as well. I added both sources in Sage, and the 1600 seemed to work fine. The times when Sage ddoesnt freeze when I'm using the HDPVR the oher times the video is very jerky and washed out. It also doesnt seem to scale the display properly. You either get 16:9 display with the black horizontal bars. Or you get the picture being way off center with a 1/3 of the display not being viewable. My display is a 4:3 27 inch TV. I'm running my video card at 640 x 480. Can anyone shed some light?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Some C2 units are still locking up.

Playback on a Vista client does not use DXVA with VMR9.

Still no 5.1 audio capture. - Nope


P

1. That is what it appears; however, C2 works flawlessly and has from Day 1. The only issue I have is that if my HD-PVR is powered on before my Server is, then I have to power cycle my HD-PVR (we lost power the other day and so I turned all my UPS's off and when we regained power the HD-PVR came on right away, but my server did not as they were on different power sources).

2. This seems accurate from what I have seen. I use HD100's for playback.

3. Not yet.

[Brent]

I've heard from two reliable sources that the 5.1 audio firmware update is coming soon. They are still working out the last few kinks, but it progressing.

[sleonard]

I have returned two brand new C2 units for locking up on me. The C2 units I got back have not. Yet. (Second week and counting)

S

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Polypro

For us late adopters, are the following currently true:

Some C2 units are still locking up.

I've heard from multiple people that this is the case & I had it happen the other day. I'm wondering if the continued problems occur in warmer rooms -- my house is air conditioned, but that room gets close to 80 F. Maybe there are fewer overheating problems if the room is cooler.

- Andy

[ProAm500]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I've heard from multiple people that this is the case & I had it happen the other day. I'm wondering if the continued problems occur in warmer rooms -- my house is air conditioned, but that room gets close to 80 F. Maybe there are fewer overheating problems if the room is cooler.

- Andy

I have a C2 unit that i got yesterday. I havent really been able to use it at all as Sage usually freezes when I try to do anything.

[phelme]

My red & blue top LEDs have suddenly stopped coming on when recording under Sage. They still come on when recording with ArcSoft Capture however... odd. Though the fan still comes on under both conditions.

Anyone's HD-PVR ever just stop recording for any reason?

[sleonard]

My blue led's stay on whenever the power is on. The red led's are intermittant. Most of the time they light up during a recording but sometimes do not. Considering all the other issues I have had / am having I've put this at the bottom of my list.

S

[Skiier__Dude]

Got my HD PVR on Monday.

My server is XP-SP2 based, AMD 3200+ (2GHz) with 1Gb RAM and about 750Gb of storage space. So a pretty low end machine -- but seems to work very well for recording and serving media.

I had a PVR-150 installed in my headless server. I tried initially just adding the HD-PVR to my system in the hope it would work -- but no joy. Used HCWClear and removed all drivers and pulled the PVR-150 out of my system. Upon restart -- windows would try to launch and immediately blue-screen and just keep rebooting and blue-screening. For the 3 seconds the blue screen showed up before reboot, I was able to see something in the error about "audio" -- I restored the last know good config -- got the machine to start and then disabled the onboard audio card, midi ports, game ports etc... off the machine. Ran HCWClear again and got the system to start up.

I initially tried the Hauppauge Beta drivers. The ArcSoft software would recognize the HD PVR but there was no video in the preview and any capture would fail. I finally backed out of using the beta drivers and used the ones that came on the CD. ARCSoft worked fine for capture and preview. Upgraded Sage to the latest Beta for both the server software and the HD-100. Sage recognized the HD-PVR immediately and I was able to copy over my channel lineup to the new encoder. I use the USB-UIRT for channel changes -- it's very quick (about 3 or so seconds) and seems to work without issue. Sage is now recording shows -- thus far after 2 days, no lockup issues.

The red and blue LEDs don't come on when Sage uses the HD-PVR on my system either -- only with ARCSoft. I can hear the fan come on when it is recording however.

All in all, very pleased with the recording quality. Really appreciate the early adopters who published their step by step process on this forum as your pioneering cut out a considerable number of steps for me in this setup.

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I'm wondering if the continued problems occur in warmer rooms -- my house is air conditioned, but that room gets close to 80 F. Maybe there are fewer overheating problems if the room is cooler.

I am running my HD-PVR in probably the worst conditions possible and it has been working fine since day one. It is first rev, so no internal fan, and my media closet is on the 2nd floor of my house, which routinely gets into the mid to upper 80's during the day. Combine that with the fact that the media closet stays a good 5 to 10 degrees hotter than that, so I'd say its easily 95+ degrees in there. Far from optimal, I know...

One of these days I'll be redesigning the closet with to better suit its purpose, with some circulation fans in there to keep the temps down. I just have to hope my hard drives don't fail before I get around to it.

-Dan

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by CyRex

I am running my HD-PVR in probably the worst conditions possible and it has been working fine since day one. It is first rev, so no internal fan

If yours is working w/o a fan, then it probably isn't a valid comparison to the units w/fans because you most likely have their original design chip that doesn't have the overheating problem. (My understanding is that some chip was changed by the supplier & that's the one that is overheating; someone can correct me if that is wrong.)

- Andy

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If yours is working w/o a fan, then it probably isn't a valid comparison to the units w/fans because you most likely have their original design chip that doesn't have the overheating problem.

Ah, good point. That rings a bell, now that you mention it. I would be curious to know how much the chip temp actually drops with the fan just circulating the air inside the case. The exchange of heat through the plastic case must be pretty inefficient.

-Dan

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If yours is working w/o a fan, then it probably isn't a valid comparison to the units w/fans because you most likely have their original design chip that doesn't have the overheating problem. (My understanding is that some chip was changed by the supplier & that's the one that is overheating; someone can correct me if that is wrong.)

- Andy

I agree.

But, I am also running my units under hot conditions. Summer temps reach 115+ here in Tempe, AZ and during the day my thermostat automatically shuts off the AC to save money. My bedroom where my server and the units are located gets close to 100.

I also have had 3 of these returned (2 were C2).

When I recieved the latest C2 units I bought a powerful desktop fan and pointed it directly at them 24/7 and haven't had any lockups since.

S

[davin]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Playback on a Vista client does not use DXVA with VMR9.

DXVA does not work in VMR9 or overlay in vista for me.

[Polypro]

Thanks all. Looks like I have to keep waiting...I love having the HTPC near the TV for surfing/email with Sage in a window...an HD100 would seem like overkill. So Cyberlink decoders won't work huh? I have CoreAVC, but no DXVA there either. The new Divx beta might be a possibility. Anyone doing software decode on an E6600?

P

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I would get an RMA and return it for a replacement and make sure they understand it is a C2 unit that is locking up.

I've finally decided to go this route too.

I've heard that any C2 units still failing are bad & should be replaced. I can answer my own question about the case now because I have one that still failed while the cover was off. I was also told on the phone that they've tested them by setting them on top of an STB & they continued to work... and if their STB is anything like mine, it is a small space heater, so an 80 F room shouldn't be much challenge compared to that.

- Andy

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by Opus4

...I was also told on the phone that they've tested them by setting them on top of an STB & they continued to work... and if their STB is anything like mine, it is a small space heater, so an 80 F room shouldn't be much challenge compared to that.

- Andy

No doubt. My Dish STB is the hottest component in my closet by far. The top gets hot to the touch.

Now for my question. Are people having success getting the IR emitter working inside Sage? I have a USB-UIRT, but it is being used by my CQC software and therefore not usable for the HD-PVR. I tried to connect through the Hauppauge IR software, but it didn't seem to work. Regardless, I think there is probably a different setup so that Sage can use it anyway. I didn't have time to trouble shoot it, so I figured I would come here to ask.

I'll search the forums too, but I thought this would be a good thread to ask what people's results have been and if they were successful, how.

Thanks,

EDIT - I just found the How to (or thread with) configuring HD-PVR IR Blaster? thread and I have not followed those directions. So I guess that needs to be my first set.

[rgreenpc]

Does not having DXVA in Vista cause a stuttering problem?

I am currently exploring my options for moving over from VMC.

I would need 2 of these.

Also has anyone been using these with the USB control cable?

[davin]

For me, not having DXVA in vista yields crappy deinterlacing artifacts which makes 1080i unwatchable. It looks fantastic in WMP or in graphedit using the enhanced renderer (which sage doesn't support).

This could be because my cpu doesn't have the power to do the software decoding (E4300), but I'm not sure.