Newer Avermedia M780 drivers

[kricker]

I had a total meltdown with sage on that system and had to start all over. I even removed the avermedia drivers and re-installed them. After redoing everything things SEEMED to be better. I'll no more in a few days again.

FYI, the Sage channel scan found quite a few channels, but also skipped over others I had to enter manually.

[BFisher]

keep us posted. Mine is quite reliable now, but Sage service still crashes every once in a while (maybe once every 2 or 3 days) (thankfully it restarts automatically).

I too had to manually enter a HD OTA channel (just 1) that it missed, and delete several it found that I didn't want.

[kricker]

Ok here are the results:

Tuner1 (analog): set to tune all analog channels
Tuner2 (digital): set to tune clearQAM channels

Sage without server
Works fine until the system sleeps then resumes from standby. After resuming from standby Sage exhibts all sorts of strange behaviour when trying to tune a channel, eventually locking up.

Sage with server
Works fine until the system sleeps then resumes from standby. After resuming from standby Sage can no longer tune any clearQAM channels, but the analog channels will tune fine.

So it appears the 2.5.0.18 drivers do not initialize the digital tuner after resuming from stanby properly.

Before my entire Sage rebuild, using the 2.5.0.19 drivers caused other tuning issues and seemed very unstable even before resuing from standby. I might try using those drivers again to see if it will reume from standby properly.

[BFisher]

I gave up on sleeping my server. It's running 24x7 right now... Since I switched to this, I've had much fewer problems.

[kricker]

I got better progress now.

In the Vista power options under the customized or advanced setting, I forget which it is called, there is a PCIExpress setting. It was enabled before. I disabled it, and now the tuner card is working after resuming from standby. At least for now it is, time will tell how it goes.

I am still using the .18 drivers for now as I tried the .19 again, and they made Sage unstable.

[trini0]

I noticed something with my M780 on another issue.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...73&postcount=5
In the past 24 hours, my M780 has not crashed SageTV's service since I disabled USB in the bios.
It used to always crash the service when coming out of sleep.
Power Management has been working nicely since (knock on wood).
I'll will be monitoring it over the weekend.

[BFisher]

unfortunately this is not an option for me. Using USB for controlling my DirecTV STBs.

The Sage service only crashes occasionally for me, I haven't figured out the pattern yet. About twice a week, only on the analog inputs.

[kricker]

Originally Posted by trini0

I noticed something with my M780 on another issue.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...73&postcount=5
In the past 24 hours, my M780 has not crashed SageTV's service since I disabled USB in the bios.
It used to always crash the service when coming out of sleep.
Power Management has been working nicely since (knock on wood).
I'll will be monitoring it over the weekend.

What do you mean by disabling the USB in the BIOS. Do you mean actually turning off the USB ports, or just the ability for them to wake the system from standby with the USB ports?

[trini0]

Turning them completely off.
They do not show up in the Device Manager.
I know, it is totally wierd....
Since my last post, it is still working perfectly.

[kricker]

Things seem to be running ok now, save for the problems with Vista. Can anyone at Sage explain why the clear QAM only works under Vista. I'd like to roll that system back to a more stable XP install or possibly try a linux install, but I dont wanna loose the clear QAM. Is it Avermedia's drivers or a Sage limitation?

[BFisher]

Which M780 driver are you on? I'm on 19 (in XP) and I have 1 issue driving me nuts.

Once in a while (no rhyme or reason I can figure yet), I get horrible pixilation (you can't watch it it's so bad) on the analog input (connected to my DirecTV boxes). It looks like the satellite receiver loses it's connection to the satellite (I know that's not the problem, but that gives you an idea of what it looks like).

Happens about once a week on either card. I ended up buying a Hauppauge 1800 that I will be putting in to see if it does it too...

[kricker]

Using .18 with Vista Ultimate 32. I haven't seen any pixelation issues.

[kricker]

Originally Posted by kricker

Can anyone at Sage explain why the clear QAM only works under Vista. I'd like to roll that system back to a more stable XP install or possibly try a linux install, but I dont wanna loose the clear QAM. Is it Avermedia's drivers or a Sage limitation?

anyone know?

[ToxMox]

I believe it is an Aver limitation. The way the driver works in Vista, Sage was able to hook into the QAM connection. AFAIK Aver doesn't want to provide Sage with info to do QAM.

[kricker]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

I believe it is an Aver limitation. The way the driver works in Vista, Sage was able to hook into the QAM connection. AFAIK Aver doesn't want to provide Sage with info to do QAM.

Figures....

[PosterBoy]

I asked sage tech support in an email where the problem lies and they said it WAS an issue with AverMedia's XP driver.

Given that AverMedia's beta drivers allow QAM tuning again only in Vista Media Center (not XP MCE), I suspect there is either a real technical issue or some sort of pressure from the media giants. I dont think AverMedia is intentionally excluding Sage, but who knows.

My Sage system runs on XP, although I have another computer that runs Vista Ultimate. I recently bought a Hauppauge HVR-1800 to put in my XP system, and moved my M780 to my Vista machine. I was tired of waiting and suspect that it wont ever happen. I probably wont try QAM in Vista's Media Center until the AverMedia drivers get out of beta (or at least more stable than I have read that they currently are).

On a side note, the analog tuner in the M780, at least in my house with my cabling is FAR better than the Hauppauge HVR-1800. The picture quality on the M780 is flawless, and with the Hauppauge board its grainy and very noisey. If QAM tuning ever does get worked out for Sage on on the M780 under XP I will certain swap them back.

[kricker]

Thanks for the info. I hate the ever eternal wait and see game.

[kricker]

I was doing a bit of surfing tonight and decided to check on the AverMedia driver progress. I ran across this page with links to the beta drivers for MCE. Reading the PDF from the linked ftp site it appears as these drivers work for MCE XP as well as Vista. Check out the many notes about what to do if using vista. If that is the case then that leads me to believe that these drivers may let the m780 tune clear QAM in XP. Anyone got xp running with a m780 and brave enough to try it?

[jptheripper]

im not seeing any reference to XP drivers, only to VISTA Media Center..

[kricker]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

im not seeing any reference to XP drivers, only to VISTA Media Center..

Read thru the pdf included with those files. I have started the process of trying it on xp. The drivers load after first installing the .19 drivers. The Avermedia APP actually tunes clearQAM channels in HD. I sent the info to Qian with Sage, and I am awaiting his results.