Newbie needs help to get off the starting line!

[Roscoe62]

Help!

I purchased SageTV and a Hauppauge PVR150MCE capture card.

I've fitted the card to my XP based PC. I have connected the audio and s-video connections to my Satellite box - I won't be using the in-built tuner as I live in an area that gets lousy reception.

The problem is that I can't get it to work with ANYTHING! Not SageTV....not even WinTV2000!

When I first installed it I thought it a little unusual that the disc had very little on it. It had a set of drivers and a tiny app called AMCap_DX9.exe. I tried using Sage but it did not work so I tried the AMCap application. I really couldn't figure out how to use it, but every now and then I could get a still appearing, and once or twice I did manage to get a video stream appearing, but with no sound.

I thought it might be the drivers so I went to the Hauppauge website & downloaded the latest drivers for the PVR150, and followed the advice there. I used the hcwclear.exe to get rid of any previous drivers & rebooted. Windows was supposed to notice the new hardware device but it didn't. I had to uninstall the device via the control panel and reboot again.

Anyway, I pointed it to the temp directory where I had the pvr150_inf.zip files unzipped to and it found the right driver there and seemed to install successfully. As per the Hauppauge instructions I then ran the pvr150_22_22292.exe file and that also ran OK. I then installed the video decoders app hcwsmd04.exe as instructed and installed the winTV2000 application. Everything seemed to install fine.

When I fire up WinTV2000 I get nothing! No sound or picture.

If I try to set up the card under Sage I get a very quick error message that says "There was a capture error in playback. Details:
ERROR (-4,0x8007048f): There was an problem using the capture device. Please be sure you have the latest drivers installed for your capture device, and that they are installed correctly."

This is quickly followed by a second error message:

"There was a Playback Error in playback. Details:
sage.Playback Exception: ERROR (-3,0x80040243):There was a problem accessing the filesystem for playback."

I've managed to get a lot of systems working with little or no instruction but I've run out of ideas for this. I know it's asking a lot but I'd be grateful for any help in pointing me in the right direction!

[g808]

What PCI slot do you have it in? Did you try a different one? Sometimes these cards are picky and like to be in a certain slot. Usually first, second or last slot I think. Try this out if you have not already. It could also be that the PCI slot is bad.

[Opus4]

For some reason, that PCI slot comment reminded me: how old is the motherboard? I remember seeing posts (don't have links handy) which noted that some of the newer Hauppauge cards may not work on some older motherboards that don't provide the voltage(?) the tuner card needs. It is also possible that the board is simply bad or has a conflict with something in the system -- perhaps Hauppauge could help clarify any of those possibilities.

- Andy

[InTheFlow]

Those are good ideas. I too would encourage you to change the PCI slot the card hangs out in because I had some oddball issues that sorta "fixed themselves" when I changed the slot.

If you do that you might want to uninstall and then reinstall all the drivers and software related to the card.

[Roscoe62]

Thanks for the advice.

It's a fairly new motherboard. An Asus P4800SE, and the capture card is in the first PCI slot. I guess I can try relocating it to a different slot, but the symptoms look kinda "TOTAL" if you know what I mean.

The one thought I did have after I posted was that the drivers & all the other apps I got from the Hauppauge site were for the PVR150, and I have the PVR150MCE version.

Could that be a factor?

If I need to go back to the 150 only drivers, is it just the driver I need, or do I also need the decoders and all the other stuff as well? I've got a lot of questions because the card came with virtually NO documentation at all.

Anyone?