FusionHDTV5 USB Gold

[mayamaniac]

I was reading the article about the Godzilla PVR system built by snapstream.: It's an 11 tuner PVR system (3 PVR-500, 1 ATI Theater 550, and 4 FusionHDTV5 USB Gold). By the way, SageTV needs to build a KING KONG PVR system with 22 tuners to put them in their place. lol

Anyway, the FusionHDTV5 USB Gold looks like something I would buy when I upgrade to HDTV, since PCI slots are too precious. I don't see this device listed in the the SageTV tuner support list. Will it work with SageTV? Anyone got it working with SageTV?

[ToxMox]

You know its funny. I was about to post a very similar thread after reading the same article.

Oh and second question. If it does work in Sage how many can I install at once?

[toddyus]

I have one of these and it does work with Sage.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I still don't have a machine with enough horsepower to play back the HD video properly, but I'm working under the assumption that it's machine related and not HD box-related.

I can say that Sage identified the tuner, installed it, can tune channels and capture content.

[jptaz]

For me the $40 premium doesn't make sense over the VBox USB2. It tunes all my OTA channels really well and my Cable provider doesn't do Unencrypted QAM...If I am going to pay a premium it will have to be Cable Card.

John

[jimwhite]

"I have one of these and it does work with Sage. "

oh??? tell us how ??? I'm not the only one who cannot get it to work.... SAGE discovers it and lists it, but will not get past an error when it goes to put up the little preview window...

[SPHurley]

I have a Fusion Gold USB, Two Fusion 5 lites, and a Fusion 5 Gold.
I can record using all 4 cards with the Fusion program. I can also playback and watch PIP using the Fusion program. I can't get Sage to work with more than ANY two of the cards. It locks up Sage and if you force Sage to close the PC reboots. You must have the Latest drivers from Fusion, (it changes weekly) Check on the AVS forum.

Steve

[toddyus]

Originally Posted by jimwhite

"I have one of these and it does work with Sage. "

oh??? tell us how ??? I'm not the only one who cannot get it to work.... SAGE discovers it and lists it, but will not get past an error when it goes to put up the little preview window...

What is the error you're getting?

I really didn't have to go through any particular heroics to get it work, so I'm not really sure what the difference is in your setup. Did you install the Dvico software and test the signal reception before setting it up in Sage? I know when I first set it up in Sage, it kept getting hung up on the one HD channel it couldn't tune. I had to remove it from the channel list before I could get it to preview any other channels.

But, like I said, I know the tuner is working and Sage installed it, but I have issues without not having enough horsepower to decode the files. I'm hoping a new video card that's on its way will solve the problem...

Can you provide any further details in your set up and what you have tried and haven't tried?

[Humanzee]

I am currently borrowing one of these Fusion 5 Gold USB tuners from a friend. I finally got it hooked up last night for OTA reception here in Seattle. It works with the Fusion HDTV software, though their software doesn't seem to de-interlace well, if at all.

It took me a while to figure out how to get it to work with sage. When you go through the set up process you get two available tuners options to select from, one references WDM and the other TS or something. I can't remember which I chose, then you get the preview screen. Just skip this because it will try to tune one of the channels that is already in your cable line up. Of course it won't work like that for OTA. The next step is to choose your broadcast type, in my case Digital Broadcast, then your location from a long list of cities across the US. It then downloads the presumed line up for your area. When you get the line up for your area you can select a channel and "view" which will give you a signal strength bar and video in the background or in a box depending on your video menu settings.

At this point I had a couple of problems. One issue is that the fusion seems to automatically switch to the next channel if no source can be tuned. So I was unclear which channels I was actually able to tune in. The second is that the OTA channels can be on the same number and or same call sign as your local analog cable stations. I.e. My cable company broadcasts the network feeds twice, once on channels 2-13 with their four letter call signs and again higher in the spectrum as their four letter call sign+DT which even though they are still analog happen to match the call signs for the HDTV OTA Channels. So Sage integrated these HD digital channels with Analog Channels carrying the same content. Then when I would tune to the channel in Sage, It would use the first available tuner which wasn't always the HD tuner. To get around this I disabled those duplicate named channels from my two analog cable sources and tried to remap the HD OTA channels to show up as 104, 105, 107, 109 etc. And the fusion just stopped working all together.

I removed the tuner and re-added it, but sage remembered all the settings for it and still had them mapped in the 100's. Of course I couldn't remember their original mappings so I had to start over. I restored the sage folder from a back up I had made and reinstalled the fusion tuner again, this time with out remapping the channels. It seems to be working now, accept that on some channels the program guide information does not match up with the actual channel I am on. For instance, there are 4 digital PBS stations broadcast in our area and all of them show up on channel 41. When I tune the guide to "NOVA" on the fusion, I get "Yan can cook" and vise versa. There doesn't appear to be any way to switch the line ups between the two channels. If I add another channel with the same name, there is no way to select which HDTV OTA signal gets assigned to it.

I saw a "scan for available channels" option in the channel set up for this tuner. Maybe that will update the mappings between frequency and channel name. In the Fusion software, I never had to select a location to get the channel call letters. It just scanned the OTA signals and figured out the call signs etc. I would think that this option would also be possible for sage to implement if it doesn’t already, and if indeed the call signs are transmitted along with the content on digital stations.

Regardless, Sage needs to find a way to override what is supposed to be the correct, tuner frequency to channel name to epg info. I don't want to have to rely on Zap2it to correct the line up. I submitted a change request to them several weeks ago to correct our cable line up and have yet to see any change or hear back from them. Currently the only option is to guess at the channel call signs and hope that they correspond to on that Zap2it has on record. I now have like 6 for Spike TV with various spellings and acronyms because the one on the EPG that works is three hours off. I don't even know if they supply the EPG for HD OTA tuning, I didn't see any line up for that on their web site.

As for the picture quality, it appears good, however, my opinion must be curbed by my lack of CPU and time spend critiquing it. I run my display at 1080p and noticed a lot of interlacing problems when using the fusion software as most of our broadcast stuff here is 1080i. Through the nVidia decoders and Sage things seemed much more fluid. However, my processor and motherboard are behind the times for HD and I had quite a bit of stuttering. (soon to be corrected, hopefully)

I also noticed some over scan issues. The top few pixels showed up as checkerboard squiggles and the left couple on one program were bright green. I don't know if they can be tuned out with some adjustment. Kind of distracting though.

The jury is still out for me with this device, once I rebuild and improve my hardware I will be better able to judge its performance. If these issues with the guide information can be corrected, it looks like I might have to buy it from my friend. He accidentally bought 2 of them. So I get to test for free.

I still can’t believe that I had to go to a friend’s house to watch the Seahawks vs. Panthers on a SDTV when I was so close to getting this working in HD before game time. GO HAWKS! I have two weeks until the Superbowl to get it all sorted out.