HD PVR - Is it working ?

[AtariJeff]

Considering the HD PVR for a new HD setup but this means I'll have to get new sat. receivers, setup, etc. Before proceeding I did some research on these and, I gotta say, the feedback doesn't sound good. Naturally, most posts on forums are people with problems or issues so I'd like to hear the positive feedback as well. Perhaps Sage users can help me out here. My install will be on a Sage server, possibly WHS, with 2 or 3 devices.

Video Quality - Is it OK ?
HD100 Playback - Any issues ?
Hardware Lockups and Reboots - True or not ? Maybe tied with heat issues...
Heat Issues - True ?
IR Blaster - Not sure I care because a USB-UIRT is going to be used (they rule BTW).
5.1 Audio - Working now ?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by AtariJeff

Considering the HD PVR for a new HD setup but this means I'll have to get new sat. receivers, setup, etc. Before proceeding I did some research on these and, I gotta say, the feedback doesn't sound good. Naturally, most posts on forums are people with problems or issues so I'd like to hear the positive feedback as well. Perhaps Sage users can help me out here. My install will be on a Sage server, possibly WHS, with 2 or 3 devices.

Video Quality - Is it OK ?
HD100 Playback - Any issues ?
Hardware Lockups and Reboots - True or not ? Maybe tied with heat issues...
Heat Issues - True ?
IR Blaster - Not sure I care because a USB-UIRT is going to be used (they rule BTW).
5.1 Audio - Working now ?

I have one. My DishNetwork VIP211 is set to output 1080i to my HDPVR and all playback are on HD100's. I rarely have a problem. I had a problem with the previous drivers where I would get this sort of "stop frame" playback about 5% of the time, but after upgrading the drivers to 1.1, I haven't seen it (doesn't mean it couldn't show up). My wife LOVES are HDPVR and loves the video playback from it. We are almost completely HD now (except for some channels we can't get with our HD package). I also have never had any over heating issues, but mine sits in our relatively cold basement at all times so maybe that has something to do with it?

Edit: I forgot to answer two of your questions. I only use the USBUIRT for channel changing as I also have two DishNetwork 311's so my USBUIRT controlls all three boxes beautifully. If you use more than one HDPVR then you can't use the IR blaster that comes with it (Hauppauge limitation not sage). Secondly, I haven't tried the 5.1 sound. Right now my basement is under construction and that is where I have my home theater setup, so I am just using the stereo output since the only tv's that have an HD100 (and are accessible) don't have 5.1 sound anyway. I will probably try it out once my basement renovation is complete.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by AtariJeff

My install will be on a Sage server, possibly WHS, with 2 or 3 devices.

Well I'm running 2003 Server so here goes...

Video Quality - Is it OK ?

Video quality is very good, as long as you use at least "Great", but probably normally "Best".

HD100 Playback - Any issues ?

Only issue I have is if there's a glitch in the recording* the extender can end up a bit confused, A/V can stay out of sync for a bit. FFW/RW clears that up.

Hardware Lockups and Reboots - True or not ? Maybe tied with heat issues...

Only time I've had trouble with my HD PVR is sometimes after a reboot I'll have to power cycle it for Sage to be able to talk to it.

Heat Issues - True ?

I haven't had any, but mines in the basement on top of my VIP211 on top of a shelf (so out in the cool open).

IR Blaster - Not sure I care because a USB-UIRT is going to be used (they rule BTW).

I use a UIRT, no problems there.

5.1 Audio - Working now ?

Yes sir.

*I'm still debugging that, I mentioned that I was having some issues to Sage, sent them a recording and was told they know about them and are working with Hauppauge. But the * is really because I think the glitches are not the HD PVRs fault but mine. My server is an Athlon XP 1800+, and it runs SageTV, J River Media Center, DVBDream, and IIS/PHP/Cacti (which is very cool BTW).

I've been debugging my server CPU usage today, and I think the IIS process was interrupting Sage recordings, causing Sage to drop packets or something. I noticed that I had the Cacti page open in a browser on another PC that when it refreshed the page, the IIS process would go to 100% CPU for a moment, and Sage would drop to 0%. I've been having similar inexplicable glitches in some of my OTA/HDHR recordings.

So I dropped the priority of my IIS process and closed all my open Cacti sessions, so we'll see what happens tonight with some HD PVR recordings.

<geek alert>
Oh, in addition to Cacti being very cool, Perfmon is quite cool also, it can log the CPU usage of individual processes

So no, everything is not perfect yet, but it is very good overall. The extender handles the files very well.

[Olias]

Well, here are my thoughts, for what it's worth.

Originally Posted by AtariJeff

Video Quality - Is it OK ?

Video is very good.

HD100 Playback - Any issues ?

I had to do two things for troublefree playback on the HD100.
1. Locked the STB to a fixed resolution (720p in my case)
2. Set audio for 2 channel PCM. (see below comment on 5.1)

Hardware Lockups and Reboots - True or not ? Maybe tied with heat issues...

I've been fortunate and have NEVER had a lockup with my current settings.

Heat Issues - True ?

Older units had a heat issue. Newer ones are supposed to be OK. My unit is one of the originals, but I put a fan in it right away.

IR Blaster - Not sure I care because a USB-UIRT is going to be used (they rule BTW).

I use serial tuning, so can't comment on that one.

5.1 Audio - Working now ?

Mostly working.
I never used it long enough to find out how solid it really was. My issue with enabling 5.1 audio had to do with the time to change channels.
Using the latest 1.1 driver set to two channel PCM, channel changes only take a few seconds on the HD100 and the audio syncs up right away.
Using 5.1, changes take up to 10 seconds and the audio cuts in and out during this time (which completely killed the WAF).