2nd HDPVR has weird random lost frame

[mistergq]

Randomly, the second HD PVR will lose a consistent frames so that it appears by stuttering. The sound is fine, it just the video is jumpy. If I stop the recording and restart it, it will be fine.

This only happens on my second HD PVR which is the newer one.

[HelenWeathers]

My HD PVR does the same thing (about 1 frame per second on mine) for up to about half an hour before the black screen of death ultimately appears. Rebooting solves the frame drop/black screen. I sure wish Hauppauge would get these things working like they should. They sure give a great pic with the Sage software, when they are working properly.

[Opus4]

Oh -- are you talking about the stop frame effect where it looks like like only a few frames per second are playing? That's a driver issue to be fixed in newer drivers.

- Andy

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Oh -- are you talking about the stop frame effect where it looks like like only a few frames per second are playing? That's a driver issue to be fixed in newer drivers.

- Andy

that is probably a better way to describe it. It's also weird because the sound is perfectly fine, its the video that is the problem.

When the problem first occurred, I figured it was a driver issue, but once I noticed that it was always the new one, I got concerned maybe I have a defective HD PVR.

[dadof4]

Originally Posted by mistergq

Randomly, the second HD PVR will lose a consistent frames so that it appears by stuttering. The sound is fine, it just the video is jumpy. If I stop the recording and restart it, it will be fine.

This only happens on my second HD PVR which is the newer one.

I just received my second HD-PVR today and I experienced a similar problem. My first HD-PVR continued to work fine. To make a long (very long!) story short I finally swapped USB ports between HD-PVR(1) and HD-PVR(2). The problem followed the USB ports. From this point on I just started playing musical USB ports until the problem was corrected. Device manager indicated both ports that worked were being controlled by the same USB hub.

BTW..The only way I can get silky smooth output is to have my SA4250HD STB's set to push 1080i fixed.

Hope this helps.
Rich

[jgourd]

Originally Posted by dadof4

BTW..The only way I can get silky smooth output is to have my SA4250HD STB's set to push 1080i fixed.

Funny you should mention that. When the source is 480i, the HD-PVR makes an unwatchable recording. The contrast is poor and the images is all blocky. The sound stutters too. With HD recordings it is much better behaved but not perfect.

Any clues?

[dadof4]

Originally Posted by jgourd

Funny you should mention that. When the source is 480i, the HD-PVR makes an unwatchable recording. The contrast is poor and the images is all blocky. The sound stutters too. With HD recordings it is much better behaved but not perfect.

Any clues?

I have my STB's set to output 1080i regardless of the source. The quality of a 480i broadcast or recording is excellent. Have you tried changing the settings on your STB? I think I've also seen some post were others were having luck with 720p but for me 1080i worked.

[stuckless]

Some things to keep in mind when dealing with USB....

1. Even though your computer has many USB ports, your computer may in fact only have 1 or 2 USB hardware hubs built in. So when you select a port on your computer, you may in fact be sharing the "bandwidth" with all of your USB devices. In most cases this isn't an issue, but when you are running 2 hispeed devices, they can be competing for the same resources. 480mbits/s (53mb/s) is the theoretical max for USB, but most devices can't actually do that speed, so having more than one connected is not usually an issue.

2. I think that most "real-time" video streaming devices use a method of sending data called isochronous transfer pipes. This is used for time-dependent data that does not require guaranteed delivery. In a nutshell, it means that the timing of video data is more important than the actual content. Usb Web cams use this transfer method, but I don't know if the HD-PVR using this data transfer model or not, but if it does, it would certainly explain why so many people are seeing "dropped frames".

3. The other method of sending usb data is call Bulk transfers. With bulk transfers, you get an exact copy of the original data, but it is not necessarily "real-time". This is method used by most digiatal camcorders, since you get an exact copy of the original stream. If the HD-PVR uses this method, then it could lead to the perception of dropped frames, when watching live tv, but I would think that you would not notice the issue when you are watching a recorded show.

So, much like the days when you needed to ensure that your IDE cd-writer wasn't sharing the same physical IDE cable, you now need to worry about whether or not your high speed USB devices are all sharing the same USB hub. Again, you won't notice an issue with this until you start adding more and more high speed devices.

[jgourd]

Originally Posted by dadof4

I have my STB's set to output 1080i regardless of the source. The quality of a 480i broadcast or recording is excellent. Have you tried changing the settings on your STB? I think I've also seen some post were others were having luck with 720p but for me 1080i worked.

I have looked for a way to do this several times in my Motorola Comcast STB and I don't think I can do that