Problems with PVR-500 in Vista x64

[chaos215bar2]

I recently installed Vista 64-bit as it seemed all of my hardware should finally be supported, but after the installation I've been having trouble with my WinTV PVR-500 tuner card. When I first open SageTV and select "Watch Live TV", everything works fine, but if I then go back to the menu and select this option again, the picture is choppy and the sound becomes distorted. The third time, I just get a message saying "No Signal". The only way I've found to get things working again is to restart windows, and though the WinTV application itself seems to work fine if I haven't yet used the tuner with SageTV, it will have similar issues if I have since rebooting. However, if I just go to the picture preview on each tuner individually through SageTV, the picture seems to be fine.

I've tried removing drivers through the device manager and reinstalling as well as moving the card itself. Does anyone have any ideas about fixing this?

[Taddeusz]

How much RAM do you have? The Hauppauge PVRxxx drivers don't work properly with 4GB or more of installed RAM. I realize this is one of the main reasons to have 64-bit Windows but Hauppauge doesn't plan on fixing their drivers. So you're basically out of luck unless you get a newer card.

[chaos215bar2]

Yes... I do have more than 4GB RAM and going back to 32-bit Vista isn't really an option at this point. I would have expected a card I've only had for 1.5 years to still be supported, but if this is indeed the case, I guess I'll need to get something new. And if this is the case, it will almost certainly not be a Hauppauge card.

[Taddeusz]

Just to be sure that is the problem pull out all but 2-3GB of RAM and give it a go. I'm fairly certain that is your problem though. It is unfortunate that Hauppauge has never fixed the problem with their drivers but it may be more complicated a problem than is economically feasible for them to fix on such an old legacy product (remember, the PVR500 is just a part of an old line of cards that began with the original 250 and 350, they all use the same drivers). The old analog line of PVR cards is quite old for today's standards and is for all intents and purposes obsolete with the upcoming demise of analog broadcasts. Of course that doesn't make the cards useless just less useful. It may not be that old to you but it is old enough a product to them to discontinue major driver updates. They have limited resources and new products will of course get more focus than old.

Not sure what to suggest otherwise. I personally tend towards Hauppauge cards. Their newer cards do not have the same RAM limitations in their drivers.

[Taddeusz]

You also might notice that the latest drivers for the PVR-500 are over a year and a half old if that's any indication of the support status for their analog only cards.

[chaos215bar2]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You also might notice that the latest drivers for the PVR-500 are over a year and a half old if that's any indication of the support status for their analog only cards.

Well... I'll try it with less ram and see what Hauppauge support says before I go blaming the drivers, but if I remember correctly, Hauppauge was just beginning to get their new lineup going when I bought this card 1.5 years ago (and didn't have a suitable alternative quite yet). Though the model itself is quite old, I would expect them to at least fully support the current version of windows at the time the card became outdated.

[scat]

I originally had 4gb memory in my Vista64 machine with the PVR-500, the Hauppauge site states 3gb but I thought that's ok if it only used 3gb of 4gb, but it won't function right with 4gb in the machine. I then remove 1gb and am using 3gb with no problems.

Scat

[chaos215bar2]

Well... Hauppauge blames the problem on a Vista DMA issue, and removing some RAM does fix the problem. Since I don't really want to go back to 2GB RAM (I have 2x2GB), and was planning on upgrading to 8GB soon anyway, I guess it's time for a new card. Does anyone have a dual tuner card they've been using and would recommend?